


Gradation

by MotelsandDiners



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: A little dash of domesticity, Alcohol duh, And also being an emotional masochist, Angst, Café, Creative License, Eliot doesn't know how to handle his feelings, Eliot hates an OC like it's a full-time job, Eliot is a piece of shit for this story, Eliot is confused but doesn't really give a shit, Eliot is the goddamn king of peer pressure, Eliot's just worried he's going to ruin this good thing, F/M, Fear of Rejection, Flashbacks, Getting out of comfort zones, Inexplicable connection, Insecurities, IntrovertReader, Jealousy, Love Confessions, Mentions of the actual storyline but this story is still obviously not canon-compliant, Moving In Together, Mystery and the evasion of feelings, Not Canon Compliant, Party, Past contemplations of suicide, Reader is rich, Red thread, Secret Mission, Self-Esteem Issues, Shared Conscience, Smoking, Smut, So secret I can't tell you what it is yet, Soulmates, Telepathic Daydream, Telepathy, Traveling, Trust Issues, You and Eliot are cute as fuck, You are the best thing about Eliot, again with the telepathic sex, and he knows it too, and responsibility, as in Arguing, back at it again with the angst, basically my life in a nutshell, big surprise there, but just a dash, but who the hell does?, changing the rules of magic so i can write this without judgement, getting to know someone, literally mindfucking, relationship milestone, set before season one, shared telepathic sex dream, that OC is also your best friend, the author is an asshole, this time it's really metaphysical though, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotelsandDiners/pseuds/MotelsandDiners
Summary: You aren't looking for yourself, or answers. And neither is he. Not about life, or what magic is, what it can do...that doesn't matter. You're just living out of habit. And then you meet Eliot. Yeah, that little shit just ruins everything, but you'll be damned if you don't repay the favor.





	1. Shades of White

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm thinking maybe I should just not watch Netflix. Ever. Seriously. I'm never going to get anything done.

Eliot didn’t know, when he met you he had no idea. None. All he knew was that he forgot for a few seconds that he was someone he didn’t want to be. All he saw was that you were the same, and he was drawn to you like moth to flame.

He put his drink down, _his_ drink, in the middle of a conversation with Margo, and weaved his way through the menagerie of drunken magicians loosely swaying and undulating their bodies (either with or without partners) to the music…almost on beat. But not quite.

The brew Eliot worked up for this party was stronger than his usual fare. And for no specific reason, the fancy just struck him to conjure up an alcoholic beverage that would get everyone shit-faced in record time.

There were no new students to welcome, or any hazing ritual come to an end, no elaborate prank come to fruition that they could celebrate. Nope. He was just simply in the mood to brew pure and total chaos. That could be imbibed. Yay.

So, imagine his genuine, and somewhat alcohol induced surprise when you obliterated the cottage door into dust. And not an explosion- or if it was, it was concentrated and contained, which in its own right was impressive. In any case, the door was a pile of ash on the threshold, and you stepped through in your ankle boots from Thursday Boots Co. And yeah, you’re damn right he recognized the brand.

Your sense of fashion was…eh. Underwhelming. A grey sweater, the collar was wide, allowing the straps of your tank-top underneath to be seen, the sleeves were thinned, practically skin tight just like the middle and chest. So, maybe you did know what you were doing…but he doubted it. Your jeans were simple, bland, stone-wash blue, the bottoms rolled up, so they were cuffed above your boots, he caught a glimpse of your socks: dark blue, the pattern was Greek Key, white on top of that blue…

He learned about you then. In one moment. From your socks. Your socks told him all he needed to know, and still he approached, ignoring his conscience that was slinging an arm around his shoulder and whispering in his ear: why are talking to her? Far as you can tell there isn’t a dick hiding between her legs.

“God, I hope not.” He murmured, and only after realized he was right in front of you, looking down at you. His response to his own social blunder was very suave, very couth. “Shit.”

You looked him up-down, looked at the glass in his hand, and then disarmed him with a single flicker of your eyes. “Seems a little inappropriate, given the full room. Might kill the mood.”

His green eyes were comically wide, “I’m Eliot.” He blurted, monotone in horror at himself.

“I know.” You said, and brushed past him towards the stairs. He turned on his heel, intending to follow you for a reason he hadn’t even bothered to riddle, much less acknowledge when you hindered that half-baked plan.

Some drunk idiot was stumbling his way towards the ‘dining’ room when he tripped.

Drunk people. Falling. He knows.

Not that crazy. He’d have bought it. If the thing the guy tripped over had actually been there two seconds ago.

As it goes though, chairs don’t typically get up and leave a room of their own accord. No matter the size of the ass that sits on them. Chairs are, historically, hard to offend.

Eliot barely dodged the calamity of the moment. The stain the alcohol would’ve left was nothing. Nothing a little magic couldn’t fix. The embarrassment though- never mind, magic could’ve fixed that too.

Anyway. That was when he first met you.

At a party full of people floundering around on legs as sturdy as wet spaghetti, their minds limper than that, all from his concoction. He was buzzed, not drunk.

Which was what he blamed his behavior on. Not the talking to you part.

The staring up the stairs for 10 minutes afterwards part. That’s what he blamed on the alcohol.

“Shit.” He had said again when his glass went empty, when he realized you weren’t coming down, when he realized he wasn’t going up.

Margo had disappeared. Disappeared into the sea of bodies, the scent of drugs, the haze of smoke, the pounding of the music, and the puddles of booze here and there. She had become a part of the party, and Eliot couldn’t find his way back in.

So, he found his way out, to the back patio where the bodies were scarce.

He fell into a lounge chair, oblivious to the couple a few feet away trying to have sex while fully clothed. He dropped his glass into the dew-touched grass, and tilted his head back, slightly glassy eyes determined to stay on the sky.

He smirked, seconds later when his eyes fell on the windows of the second story. Never had any willpower, not ashamed to admit it.

There was one light on. He presumed it was you. Who else could it be? The whole cottage was partying downstairs, outside. You were the only one to retreat.

You weren’t the first to run. The first introvert to infiltrate their…their…

He can’t think of the words. No surprise there.

No, there is. He can hold his alcohol better than this, why’s he so pathetic right now?

And then he realizes.

Sound.

You manipulated it, how and when doesn’t matter. But you did.

You altered the soundwaves around him to fuck with the liquid in his inner ear, making him drunker than he actually he is. Not only did you throw a booze addled idiot into his way, literally, you also physically altered his being.

And you did it without an invocation, or your hands.

And you did it right in front of him, without throwing up any alarms. Which brings us to now. Right now, as in present tense.

Oh, you thought there was going to be a ginormous time-skip, didn’t you? No, no. See, cuz this is Eliot’s story of how he met you, and he just couldn’t wait. Besides, narration in the past-tense is so- ugh. He’d never remember all this shit, anyway…he’s pretty sure he’s gotten at least 40% of this tale wrong so far, so yeah. Present tense it is.

Eliot groans. “Great. Our new roomie is a prodigy.” He reaches into his vest for his flask. “I fucking hate prodigies.”

_Especially ones that aren’t gay and pretty._ A voice murmurs between his ears.

Eliot jolts, whiskey flying out of his flask to splash on the couple that’s now taken to the grass for their horizontal-

_Please don’t say ‘dance without pants’._

Eliot looks up, and finds the blinds on your window drawn back, your darkened silhouette in view.

_Making me think I’m drunker than I am has weakened my wards, huh?_ Eliot quirks a brow at you, not sure if that translates over or if you can even see his face from that far away…He shakes his head.

_Yeah. This is more my playing field. At a distance._

Eliot makes a quiet sound, contemplative. _You do realize the cottage is kinda small, right? You’re gonna run into someone eventually._

The curtain falls back into place and your outline disappears.

He leans forward, _Shit, hey- sorry. Uh- come back?_ The curtains don’t move. He actually isn’t sure they don’t move, so he stares at them for a few seconds, hard. But they stay where they are, and Eliot sighs quietly.

He lays back on his lounge chair, feet in the grass on either side of it, and closes his eyes. It’s quiet, he notices some time later and cracks an eye open to see that everyone outside has gone in. He sips from his flask in small intervals, muscles and mind becoming looser, number.

The patio doors open, but he doesn’t look. He’s wondering what you’re up to, why you took off immediately to a quiet place upon arriving in your new home.

Sure, yeah, introvert. He gathered that part, but…are you also an introvert that doesn’t like to drink?

“That would be a shame.” He mumbles, taking another swig.

Footsteps approach, soft and quiet, wary to interrupt. They stop at the next nearest chair to Eliot, and he hears the chair creak as they sit down. It’s silent afterwards, nothing breaking it except the whiskey swirling around Eliot’s flask.

It hits him, at about his 30th drink, and he lolls his head until he’s looking at you, sitting on the very edge of the lounge chair, back straight, hands in the pockets of a jacket you threw on before coming out here.

“Hey,” he says, a mixture of pleasantly surprised, intrigued, and drunk.

“Sorry for the whole…” you gesture to your own ear to clarify, and he smiles groggily,

He waves a hand at you in dismissal. “Nah. You just helped me get drunker faster than usual.”

You smile uneasily, and look around. It isn’t a bad place to live, it’s quaint, charming, sure to be quiet on some rare occasions. Very Victorian, stylish-

“Much like the host.” Eliot smiles wider, and laughs loosely at your abashed expression when you look at him. “What’s _your_ excuse for weak wards?”

“I…they aren’t. I never let them down.” You say, and peer at him from under your lashes, cautious about him.

“What’s with the interest?” you ask him and gesture to yourself. “I can tell I’m not your type.” You say the last bit a little wryly, and it makes him smirk,

He turns his head and throws back a heavy swallow of whiskey. Someone’s started a rave inside, and he knows you won’t go in, not until it’s over. Not even to dart up the stairs…how he knows that…well, he’d rather not try to think.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he sighs and slumps down in his chair, getting comfy, “But I think I want to find out.”

He sighs again, heavily, and his eyes go droopy. Probably not a good idea for him to fall asleep drunk, someone could take advantage of him, you think.

He snickers, “Sounds like a good time.”

It’s there that you realize just how consuming he’s going to be, like wildfire in the middle of a dry season, it’s there you realize that he’s going to be exhausting, and loud, and he’s going to drain you. And you realize, with shocking clarity and laughable (but accurate) foresight that you’re going to fall in love with him.

He just about jumps out of skin when you grab the flask from his hand and take a hard drink of it. He stares at you, his hazy eyes wide, and he blinks, four times, as you chug. Yeah, you chug. If he wasn’t drunk, he’s sure his dick would approve of what you just did, but as it is…

You catch his look, the question there, and stare down at his flask in both your hands. “Life is shit.” You offer as an explanation.

Eliot scoffs, the sound cynical but sympathetic. “Amen, sister. Not that I need a reason to, but I will drink to that.”

You smile wanly, and give him his flask back. “Y/N.”

He glances at you from the corner of his eye, slumped shoulders, not from shyness or fear, but contentment. You’re comfortable, at least a little, with him.

He nods, and becomes pensive. About as pensive as a drunk man can be, and he drinks more, and shares with you when he deems you’ll actually take the flask. You seem to need to work yourself up to it.

  _Oh, my God. She needs to work herself up to drink. I need to guide this poor, unfortunate soul-_

“Was that a The Little Mermaid reference?” you interrupt his thoughts,

And he laughs drunkenly, his eyes sliding shut, and he nods as well as he can. _-In the ways and art of drinking._ He finishes his thought, though he’s laughing in his mind too.

You smile softly, and take the flask from his hand dangling over the arm rest. “Okay. Think it’s safe to say you’re drunk enough.”

Eliot stares up at you, hair falling over his forehead, and groans. “First lesson: No such thing as ‘drunk enough’.”

“Right. Lesson learned.” You assure him with a serious expression and reach over to pat his shoulder.

And he really isn’t surprised, the next day, when he wakes up in his bed still fully clothed minus his shoes. He is surprised that the blinds are drawn, and his door is closed, and his tie is gone, the collar of his shirt loose.

“Oh?” There’s a note taped his vest, and he picks it up, squinting at in the dark of his room.

_Morning, or afternoon. I’m sure you’ve already worked out that you didn’t tuck yourself in so precisely and prudently, given your inebriation. So, I’ll put it on your tab. By the way, I’ve enchanted your door to act like a Mobius strip. Figured you’d want to suffer your hangover in silence and solitude.            - Y/N_

Eliot folds up the note and lays it on his bedside table. And then he goes back to sleep, a smile tugging his lips.

He thinks he likes you.

 

You look up from your book, up towards the ceiling where Eliot sleeps in his room, and you listen. Listen for what’s there, and what isn’t, and everything between. You hear words in your head, your words, that you wrote down for him on a simple slice of notebook paper, but you hear them in his voice.

It sounds so much more eloquent in his voice, in yours it just sounds overplayed, too much effort.

_I think I like her_

You freeze, fingers tightening on your book, crinkling the pages. And you may or may not have a low-key panic attack. A catatonic panic attack, because you’re just high maintenance like that.

 

He wakes up abruptly; one solid, hard tug and he’s sitting up in bed feeling like someone pulled a rug out from underneath his feet.

_I’m coming in_

Maybe he should be worried that you can just pop into his head like nothing. He wonders how often you’re there…

You haven’t even fully emerged from the shimmering phosphorescence of the doorway before he’s asking you question.

“Did you see the dream I just had?” he’s looking at you with unblinking eyes, his hair ruffled in fluffy directions- he looks like exactly what he is: hungover.

“No.” you say and continue in seamlessly.

“Oh,” he’s immediately blasé, and falls back on his elbows. He looks at his door, “How long is that going to last?”

“Until you want me to get rid of it.” You plop down in a chair, and open the book you were reading downstairs.

“Never.” Eliot answers, his mind on the possibilities and the ways he can use this enchantment to have all sorts of fun. He smirks, and then looks at you, his smirk gone. He’s still staring when you glance up from your book.

“I’m not in your head.” You say with an eye roll.

“Are you sure, because- _that_ was suspicious.”

You sigh dramatically. “No idea what you’re thinking, swear to whatever God is out there.” You hold up a hand in solemn oath, and Eliot squints limply,

“…okay.” His head falls back, a groan grating from his throat, adam’s apple jolting with the noise. He runs his tongue over the back of his teeth, frowning at the fuzziness and taste. “What are you doing here?” he asks, suddenly realizing the strangeness that is you, in his room.

“Margo.” You answer with a tight sigh. “Convinced I’ve done that-“ you nod at his door, “for some sinister reason, and won’t leave me alone. Wants me to dispel it. I don’t feel like it.”

Eliot smirks, and raises his head, his green eyes twinkling. “Petty.” He can just imagine the look on Margo’s face at whole situation, and he chuckles. “I approve.”

You try not to, but you smile, a little.

“So?” he says, and you hum idly at him in question. “You met Margo. I’m guessing you weren’t immediate fans of each other.”

“Not really.” You dead-pan, and then throw your gaze around his room. “Honestly, I’m confused as to why we’re talking….you and I seem to be polar opposites.”

Eliot furrows his brow. “Yeah. I know.” His flask makes an appearance, and he washes away the aftertaste of stale whiskey with fresh whiskey, as well as the taste of confusion which does not mix well for a recently roused Eliot.

That’s how he handles the weird, inexplicable connection between you. With alcohol.

“Come drink with me.” He says, but it sounds like a question. He pats the space next to him in bed with his fingers, not sure if you can see from your vantage point: he did a fantastic job of bundling up the blankets in his sleep.

“You know, I don’t drink as a hobby…” you stand, and he peers at you down his nose as he’s in the middle of a dramatic swig.

_Yeah, I know. I also told you I was going to instruct you in the ways of alcohol, though._

You say nothing, and leave your book on the chair. “I feel like this weird thing between us is never going to be something that gets talked about-“

“Good instincts, Herminone,” he praises listlessly, and pats the space beside him more firmly. “Now lay your ass down. We have a whole day for you to get acquainted with the liquid in this flask.”

_I’m proficient in all areas of magic._ You blurt in your mind, and Eliot pops an eyebrow up at you as you sit down next to him.

“Is this an attempt to talk about the weird thing?” Eliot asks, handing the flask off to you. He lays back down and tucks an arm underneath his head.

“I guess. It’ll explain why I can read your mind when your wards are down.” You frown at the flask, and then at him from the corner of your eye when he grabs your wrist and guides the flask to your lips.

“Cool.” He’s trying not to care, “Now chug it, Alcohol Virgin.”

You splutter and choke, whiskey dribbling down your chin.

_Wasteful. Though, most people aren’t fans of swallowing._ He winks at you, and you choke a little more.

He laughs, the sound rich but somehow hollow and you glare down at him. His changeable eyes crinkle in the corners but remain giddy as he reaches up and swipes a thumb underneath your bottom lip.

“You’re so adorable.” He coos, managing to sound his usual brand of sarcastic and ‘I don’t care’. He pops his thumb into his mouth, and sighs. “I think you and I will get along just fine.”

You don’t think you will, but you keep that to yourself, boarded up behind all your wards, and finally lay down next to him, trying to block out the appeal of his cologne underneath the scent of booze, and the vaguely tangible tang of perspiration.

And Eliot steadfastly ignores the outline of you, the almost there appreciation he has for you, the perplexing twinge he feels when you touch him in the most neutral of ways. Contact in the hands, passing the flask back and forth. Simple.

But he wants it to not be simple.

“So, tell me.” He breaks the silence after a couple hours, and you’re drunk. Way past it actually, and he’s well on his way to getting drunk again. You make an inquiring sound, all bubbly, but slow and ragged about it, and he thinks it’s the most pathetically cute thing he’s encountered since Cancer Puppy.

“Life is shit,” he quotes you from last night, and half gets up to reach behind him for the silver case he keeps his cigarettes in, in his back pocket.

_I’m straight, in your bed, and you’re gay. Life IS shit._

Eliot looks down at you, your groggy eyes maintaining contact unabashedly, he doesn’t blink either. “Other than that, why’s life shit?” he sails on, glazing over…your drunken admittance- of some sort. He puts the cigarette between his lips and conjures a tiny flame on the tip of his finger.

“You tell me.” You say just as he inhales, and he raises an eyebrow at you. “It’s familiar: the look in your eyes and the self-medication.” You hold the flask out for him to take, and he does after several quiet, tension growing seconds.

“You know too.” You murmur, three simple words. And they hit him like nothing has in a long time.

He takes another drag of his cigarette, and then moves. He’s half over you, one arm above your head, the other is hovering above your chest to hold his cigarette, his stomach touching your side.

His usually dull, lifeless eyes are now raw, and piercing you with intensity that would make you shiver if you weren’t currently drunk off your ass. They’re cold, and jagged, and cut you in a primal way, and you can’t even look away.

_Life is more than shit. It’s shit on fire._ He tells you, his lip curling just a bit in bitterness and ire, and then he leans down, his eyes locked with yours. He hesitates, and for one reason. The cigarette. He decides he doesn’t care, and you probably don’t either.

He cups your chin, mindful of the burning end of his cancer stick, and merely suggests with the slightest of pressure. Your lips part, and he breaches the distance.

_Gasoline,_ he thinks, as smoke leaks out of his mouth and into yours, as you inhale the staleness of his lungs. _We’re gasoline for that fire._

_So who’s the match?_  He hears you ask, but he doesn’t answer, not right away. He’s too busy pondering the mystery of why the aftertaste of whiskey on your tongue tastes better than the actual thing to think of an answer.

He doesn’t really know what the fuck is going on.

Why his tongue is in your mouth, why your hands are in his hair, why he doesn’t mind those two things. Because he doesn’t. Mind those things, and he should. He should mind. But you take the cigarette from his hand, put it out with the pad of your thumb, toss it elsewhere and then bury that hand in his hair like you don’t feel the pain and it’s…

It’s wholesome.

_You don’t understand,_ his hand falls on your hip, thumb rubbing circles into your stomach, and he pulls away, biting your bottom lip lightly. “Fire’s already started.” He murmurs, his tone as heady as the smoke you breathed in, as soft and smooth, but it isn’t voice that’s like smoke. It’s him.

Because in the second it took for him to cover you, he’s up and out of the bed, heading towards his bathroom without a backwards glance.

You sit up, suddenly sober, and the second his bathroom clicks shut you’re hauling ass out of his room, a hand over your mouth. You emerge on the other side of the Mobius door and almost ram into Margo. You rush an apology and take off down the hallway towards your own room, with her hot on your tail asking you what the hell happened.

You burst into your room, and shut your door.

And when she opens it, she’s staring down the length of the hallway at her own back. “Fuck.”

 

When Eliot leaves his bathroom in a fresh change of clothes, his listless eyes glance over his empty bed. He doesn’t blink.

He leaves his room, running his tongue over the backs of his teeth, chasing the staleness of whiskey and shared smoke. It tastes awful in his mouth.

But most everything does.


	2. Shades of Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all just gets messier, but why the Hell wouldn't it? What's there to do now except jump into this shit-show head first?

Time flew, as it tends to do, and you put yourself in your studies with a fire that would’ve burned most people out. But for you, it saved your sanity. It kept your mind off a certain someone.

He watched from afar, and rarely. Just in passing. He never went out of his way to see you, just caught glimpses of you in his peripherals, or heard about you in snatches of conversations between other students. Margo on multiple occasions inquired about you,

“How am I supposed to know? Barely talked to her.” He’d say before taking a drag from his cigarette or throwing back whatever drink he’d be holding in the moment.

The Mobius spell is still active on his door. And he has no intention of telling you to dispel it, nor does he have any intention of even speaking to you.

Eliot isn’t sure why he’s avoiding you. He’s an expert at pretending things don’t happen. He could just throw an arm around your shoulder, insist a drink into your hand, and then spark up a conversation on any number of topics.

But he doesn’t, he just sits on the couch, a glass of wine in hand and watches the door of the cottage. Someone’s talking to him in muted tones of rose and gold, undercurrents of red, and delightful promise. He doesn’t hear a word.

He’s too busy wondering why he feels tight as a rope, and tired, and low-key pissed and you walk through the cottage doors, and those feelings get amplified by a hundred.

He stiffens in his seat, and blinks at the lethargy that makes his bones ache in his body. He sucks in a breath at the piercing numbness in his chest, his hand tightens on his wine.

He watches you hurry up the stairs, your head down, and he feels what you feel, down to the very atoms of his being. Which is why he’s up out of his seat like it’s been lit on fire and tearing after you up the stairs, expertly carrying his glass as he goes.

Margo cranes her neck from the dining room when she sees Eliot practically sprint after you, his long legs skipping steps. Half of her wants to be nosy, to get in the middle of this, the other half doesn’t want to get her shoes dirty.

He’s a big boy, he can handle his own problems. She hopes.

Eliot reaches you just in time, he gets a foot in your door, hand holding the edge of it, his forearm braced on the wood above his head. His entire body is pulled long, taut, much like the expression on his face as he stares at you on the other side of the door, trying to shut it.

“Oh, fuck off.” You groan at him, at his random spurt of persistence, the serious chill in his eyes, the graceful line his body has been pulled into, his perfectly intact glass of wine.

“Listen. I typically don’t care about what other people are up to, or about people in general, but,” Eliot blinks and flits his gaze at the tiny space between you. “I’d rather you not do what you’re thinking about.” He says the last bit, uneasy.

“What?” you say, and scoff. But you swallow thickly, “How do you even-“

“I know the look.” He murmurs, his brown eyes dually hard but sympathetic to the point that you can bear to make eye contact with him.

“So you’re not going to leave me alone-

“I’m not going to leave you alone.” He nods, and then he inhales heavily as a silence falls between you. “I’m not good at touchy-feely bullshit.” He says like an apology, and lets the door go to snatch your wrist.

“What I am good at,” he continues, tugging you along, his long legs carrying him faster than you’re prepared to go. You both enter his room and he lets you go, pausing long enough to put his glass of wine in your hand.

You watch him flutter around his room, tearing through bedside tables, and desk drawers, and you timidly sip. You furrow your brow when he disappears into his closet and rifles through his clothes, muttering and mumbling to himself.

“What I am good at,” he repeats as he comes back out, holding a small vial of blackish-brown liquid, “Is brewing up drinks.” He wears a thin smile and stops in front of you, his eyebrows loosely knit.

“Here.” He says and offers it to you.

When you get a closer look at it, your stomach tightens. “This is a p-“

“Potion that prevents you from harming your body. Yeah.” Eliot shrugs, and flashes you an empty smile. “I have bad days.” He offers as way of explanation.

You frown and drop your gaze. The appearance reminds of you coffee, and you keep that in mind as you take a tentative drink-

“No, no. Bottoms up. It’s better if you don’t taste it.” He advises, and puts his index finger on the bottom of the glass, tilting it to your lips. You take his council, but inevitably the taste lingers, and he smirks at the grimace and shudder that runs through you.

“Wine’s all yours.” He graciously gives, and cocks an eyebrow when you chug the red liquid down in three swallows. You stare down into the empty glass, chewing your lip, and he’s aware suddenly of the proximity and the fragile air that he’s about to break,

“You know that weird thing I don’t want to talk about?” he throws out there, the question customary because he knows you know. “I think we should.”

You step away from him, and put your glass down on the nearest flat surface. “Why?”

Eliot whirls, and regards your back with an expression he’d tone down a few degrees if you were looking at him. “Because regardless of your telepathy, we shouldn’t be able to communicate that way. _I_ shouldn’t be able to sense your emotions, or get into your head like you’ve never heard of wards.” He’s condescending by now, and you’re unaffected, running your fingertips along his bedsheets as you meander around his room.

“I don’t like that I spend more than half of my day thinking of you when I should be drunk and on another planet. And I really don’t like the fact that the last time someone offered to blow me I shot that shit down without thinking.” And now he’s rambling.

“Well, it’s not my fault you cock-blocked yourself.” You snicker, and look over your shoulder at him. He puts his hands on his hips, and whets his lips,

“No, it is. I’ve been- I can’t believe I’m about to say this- I’ve been doing research,” you watch him visibly battle a disgusted shudder and smile.

“And I think I know what ‘this’-“ he points between the two of you, “is about.”

He goes stock still, frozen as he stares at you unblinking, those pretty eyes dazed and confused and somewhat terrified, and you realize he doesn’t want to say the words making his lips twitch.

“Well, what is it?” you demand and he jumps, startled.

He darts his gaze around the room, and opens his mouth. “I-…” Eliot, stutters and wrings his hands, and then grimaces. “I gotta go. I have a way to figure this shit out. I just needed to make sure you wouldn’t hurt yourself before I left.” It all comes out in a rush, and he shifts on his feet, his lips still in the process of forming words when he turns tail and strides out of the room, leaving you staring, agape.

He’s gone all day, all day. Without a word to anyone, no note, and hidden because you can’t locate him with any kind of spell. And Margo interrogates your ass the whole time he’s gone, convinced you know what’s going on.

You rake a hand through your hair, “Look, I seriously hardly know him. I have no idea where he went or what he’s up to. If I did, I would tell you so you’d stop hounding me with your ‘nails on a chalkboard’ voice.” You say without looking up from your notebook as Margo towers over you with her manicured hands on her hips.

She sighs, and as if you invited her, she falls onto the couch next to you. “He’s been a spazz the last few days, when he’s not bouncing off the walls, he’s a middle schooler going through an emo phase…” she punctuates her venting session by crossing one shapely leg over the other.

“He honestly seems prone to mood swings, is it really that weird?” you inquire, flipping a page.

“Not unless he’s done 10 pounds worth of drugs,” she says and leans forwards for the cocktail sitting on the edge of the coffee table.

One good thing about the cottage: alcohol. Everywhere. All the time.

“And as far as I know, he hasn’t, so I have no clue what’s going on with him,” She sips, careful not to smear her lipstick, “Except that he started acting whacked-out when you showed up.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” You sigh, and pinch at the bridge of your nose.

“I believe you. Mostly,” she licks her lips, and tosses her head lightly to fix her hair, “You two seem hell-bent on avoiding each other-“

The cottage door bursts open so hard it slams into the wall on its hinges, and Eliot arrives moments after, his hair dishelved, and his eyes wild. He sees you and Margo stand from your places at the couch and he rushes over.

“You,” he says and snatches your hand in a vice-like grip.

“C’mon. Again?” you blurt, and Margo gawks,

“What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s a long story,” Eliot calls over his shoulder, and drags you up the stairs, ignoring Margo’s exclamation and your pleas for him to slow down.

He’s talking as soon as you’re in his room. “I’ve had a very long, confusing, fucked up day,” he pulls a yellowed page of parchment from his pocket and slaps it down on his desk. The fun doesn’t end there, a simple, old-fashioned pair of scissors also make an appearance. “So, these-“ he points at the scissors.

“Enchant them with this.” He points at the parchment.

“Wh- what, why?”

He sighs, rakes his hands through his hair, and then strides across the room towards you. You back up, your eyes widening.

“Yeah, I know. I’m acting crazy. But I’m not. I just want to know what the Hell this is,” he murmurs, stopping a few inches from you, “Because I _feel_ like I’m going crazy.”

“Why?” You dart your gaze away from his face, down to his chest which is eye-level for you, and run your eyes over the pattern of his tie.

“Just-“ he stops, and counts your eyelashes that are fanned down over your cheeks because of your lowered gaze. He blinks rapidly, and sighs. “Enchant those scissors I almost lost my left nut for.”

You look up at him, stunned, and he chuckles in the back of his throat, pretending to be indifferent.

“Alright, but are you going to tell me anything before I do?”

His expression pinches, he gives you a strained smile, and puts a hand on your lower back to usher you towards his desk.

“Didn’t think so.” You say under your breath as you pull out a chair and sink into it. Eliot’s hands find the arm rests from behind and he leans over you to watch as you enchant the creaky pair of iron scissors.

He watches your hands, your small hands hovering and moving over the scissors, dexterous and sure, dainty. His hands tighten on the arm rests, and he’s a little more aware of the breath in his lungs. You quietly murmur the spell under your breath, Eliot leans forward a few more inches and tears his eyes away from your hands.

The scissors quiver and vibrate, and shimmer in intervals on the desk.

There’s a blinding flash, and Eliot groans, squeezing his eyes shut and turning his head away. You’re in much the same predicament.

You can still feel light pushing at your eyelids a few moments later, even though the spell has run its course.

Eliot lays a hand on your shoulder. “Look.” He says, and trusting that he isn’t playing a cruel joke on you, you do.

Those old, ugly pair of scissors have changed into a slim glimmering, stainless, perfect pair of solid gold scissors that faintly glow.

“Holy shit.” You breathe, and Eliot murmurs agreement behind you.

He reaches around you and grabs them, he splutters at the jolt of energy that rushes through him. You twirl in the chair,

“You okay?” you ask him and half-reach out to touch the scissors, but stop when he pulls them back hesitantly.

“You pumped these fuckers full of energy, you know?” he chuckles, his eyes dancing and you shrug as his free hand reaches for one of yours.

“Just doing the spell.”

He nods, and turns your hand over, wrist up. He does the same, your wrists side by side, “I’m really hoping I’m wrong.” He mutters to himself, and then he opens the scissors and slides the dulled side along until it’s laying across both your wrists.

“What are you-“

He makes to cut the air with the blades but the blades never touch because pain rips through your chest and you gasp sharply, the sound mixing with the gritty groan that breaks past his lips.

The scissors glow and pulsate, and you inhale a sharp breath when you see a wisp-like red string twine around your and Eliot’s wrist.

“Fuck.” He breathes and drops the scissors, wincing when they hit the floor. He backs away from you hastily, and you stand from your chair,

“What was that? What- What even…” You stutter, and look down at the scissors, and then at your wrist, and swallow hard at the phantom pain in your chest.

And then you see Eliot pacing back and forth, lip between his teeth, and he glances at things just like you did. But his options are limited to the scissors, and you. “Okay.” He stops and holds his hands up in front of him in mock surrender, “So, you ever hear of a thing called a red thread?”

“String of fate, Thread of Destiny, yeah, some eastern folklore about people who are destined to meet one another,” you say, and then shake your head. You grip the back of the chair because your legs feel weak,

“That’s why the wards on our minds don’t mean shit to one another, why emotions between us can be shared,” he sinks to sit on the edge of his bed, and then after a second’s deliberation he slides down off it to sit on the floor.

You stare at the floor, shocked silent and then drag your hands back through your hair. “I…” You break off, and he looks up at you, tendrils of his curly hair falling down over his forehead. You roll your lips into your mouth, and you wrap your arms around your middle.

Eliot pretends he doesn’t feel the urge to get up and put his own arms around you. Words seem to be failing. He almost smirks, almost.

_You know there’s more to that folklore than you what you condensed it down into, right?_ Eliot chews the inside of his cheek, and he watches you fumble with your expression. Fumble with your emotions: you’re relieved you don’t have to talk, but you’re uneasy about the connection.

_Oh, now you’re in the sharing mood,_ The sass is not lost in telepathy.

He grins, laughing lines casing his lips. _Truth? I’m honestly flipping my shit right now._

You nod. _I know. I can feel it._

Eliot shoots his gaze elsewhere, _I can feel what you’re feeling._

Your fingers curl into your flannel, and you swallow thickly around the lump in your throat. _Like, one thing at a time, or..all of it?_ You think the last part weakly, anxious.

Eliot looks at you, his face guarded. Except his eyes, they’re soft and cautious, and just as heavy as yours are. When you lock your eyes, he sucks his teeth and sighs sharply. “All of it.” He says like an apology, but he also says it firmly, and you crack a little more.

“Right…” There isn’t nearly enough air in his room to breathe right now, and you feel trapped, but you can’t move.

_You want to run,_ he blinks in realization, and you feel bad about it, but it’s true. _Me too,_ he admits.

_Is it possible, at all? To run from this?_ Your bottom lip trembles and you turn your head away.

“No.” he doesn’t sugar-coat, or downplay with wit and sarcasm. “It’s already started to take effect.”

You groan nervously. “Effect? What effect?”

He closes his eyes and inhales dryly through his nose. “Uh…” he drops his head back onto his bed, “Now that we’ve met, discovered the Thread…”

“What?” you ask not because you want to know, not really, but just because you’re trying not to fall apart.

“We can never go back to how we were before.”

“What the hell does that mean?” you throw your hands up, and he laughs mirthlessly.

“For you, nothing. For me, it means no more threesomes, or twosomes, for that matter.”

You pause, and squint. “Okay…” you shake your head. “I’m gonna go.”

He lifts his head and glowers at you, “Do you know what I’m feeling? Right now?”

You flinch at his tone, and duck your head. “…Yeah.” It’s coming off of him in waves: frustration and directionless anger, a stone-edged self-pity and callous explosion of cynicism.

“But I don’t know what to do.” You admit, your voice breaks and you wring your hands.

He stands suddenly, his eyes still sharp and you take a tentative step back. “Whatever the Hell you want. Except sleep with someone, or have a hot-and-heavy, or even flirt. Those are no no’s, apparently.” _You’ve literally killed my libido._

You fidget, and stammer, your palms clammy. You inhale shakily, and stare at the carpet, loathe to meet his molten glare. He says nothing, just silently fumes with balled fists and a hard frown.

“Can we…can we cut it? With the scissors?” you ask, trying to find some angle where this can be fixed.

“No.” he clips, his tone sharp. “The scissors are just meant to test for it. Nothing, literally nothing, can break the Thread.”

You release a ragged breath, and open your mouth. Close it. Open it again.

Eliot lets you leave his room like a bat out of hell, and listens to you run down the hallway to the safety of your room. Your door slams loud enough for the whole cottage to hear.

He crumples on the edge of his bed, and puts his head in his hands. He thinks about the potion he made you drink, and finds some irresistible peace of mind in knowing that you can’t hurt yourself. Not physically, anyway.

Eliot listens to your thoughts all night. All night. And his heart aches that your self-worth is so low that you think you aren’t good enough for him (him of all people), he feels bad that you think his response to all of this is your fault. You aren’t to blame for anything.

He could ‘talk’ to you, but he feels you need privacy, need quiet, and he needs the same. Even if feeling everything you’re feeling is killing him.

When you finally fall asleep, he lays down in bed, fully clothed and exhausted, physically and emotionally. He rubs his hands over his face, and pretends a tear doesn’t slip down his cheekbone. If no one’s around to see it does it really fall?

He chases the day in circles until he’s dizzy, until he’s haggard with the futility. He regrets every second of the day, every second of it. He regrets that he was such an asshole to you. You’re a victim of this fate bullshit too, it isn’t your fault.

He falls asleep some time before sunrise, getting an image in his head. Of himself, from your perspective. You had looked at him in a good moment, when he was laughing with careless joviality. He feels what you felt in that moment: contentment, a very soft wish that he’d always be that laid-back with humor.

Simple. But for someone who didn’t know him at the time, someone who was drowning, it means a great deal more than a string of empathy laced words.

When he wakes, you’re long gone from the cottage. But your door is still mobius enchanted, so he knows you’ll be back. If only you’d have left him a note, or some shit. He’s aggravatingly worried about you, and he can’t do anything about it.

He drinks himself into oblivion during your absence, not knowing what else to do. Because he’s not going to be that guy that sends you a million telepathic messages a day, no matter how bat-shit crazy he goes.

Margo, in that time, whittled the truth out of him. She was, of course, skeptic, and Eliot wasn’t in the mood to change her mind. She only believed him when a very pretty, exceptionally appealing guy propositioned Eliot and Eliot, as serious as Margo’s ever seen him, looked him dead in the eye and told him to “Fuck off and go suck on some other cock.”

Yeah, now she’s adjusting.

It was déjà vu when you came back a week later and blustered up the stairs without a word or glance at anyone, and Eliot stood at the bottom staring after you, looking torn.

She offered him sage-like advice then. “Just go fuck her up a wall.”

He had scoffed at her, taken a swig from his scotch, and shot her a dry look before moping up the stairs to drink alone in his room.

He paced all night, back and forth, in a circle, in zig-zag. He wanted to talk to you, but he was getting the very strong sense that you didn’t want to be near him. And he didn’t blame you. He was all set to leave you be, until you fell asleep. And then he was done.

Here’s why:

_Breath is short, and heated, and mean. And your hands are harsher, clammy and desperate as they claw at any part of him that you can touch as his own tear at your clothes. His mouth leaves a blazing trail of open-mouthed kisses along your neck, punctuating each one with a dull bite._

_Your hands fist his curly locks as his nimble fingers work your jeans loose, and you gasp when he sucks a bruise onto your neck in plain view. He grasps the front of your shirt and tugs it open, buttons flying in all directions._

_It’s a mad rush between you to get all the offending layers off, but it lasts hardly 2 seconds before you’re both grasping at each other again, mouths drawn together in hungry kisses, hands sliding underneath shirts._

_His arm wraps around your lower back and holds you firm against him, and you groan into his mouth, your hands tightening their grasp on his vest. His tongue parts your lips, and you sigh softly, which turns into a whimper when he drags your body up his._

_He chuckles, the sound worming its way into your ear, down to your stomach like he’s got a direct line to what turns you into putty. “Fuck this.” He says, and spins on his heel._

_You both tumble onto the bed, and you squeak in surprise. But when you realize your clothes are gone, when there’s nothing between the two of you, you moan wantonly and grab his face and kiss him._

_Eliot drags a hand up your thigh, his palm warm, but he elicits shivers up your spine. He leans his weight on you, and you feel his hardness pressed between your bodies._

_You arch into him, and he hisses, breaking away from your mouth to bite your shoulder in response. His hand on your thigh pushes it out to the side, and he sucks at the teeth marks he’s left._

_“Please.” You whimper, and run your hands down his back, fingertips digging into his smooth flesh._

_He hums, and caresses your hip bone with his thumb. Your hands tangle in his hair, and he feels more than hears you beg him, and he chuckles into your ear._

_You groan and arch as his fingers slide into you, and he stares at you, his eyes dark. Your mouth falls open as his fingers work you open and pliant, and his own lips part in response. You roll your hips in tandem with his hand, soft pants spilling from your mouth, and Eliot groans quietly._

_His fingers curl inside you, and you gasp sharply, hips jolting, and Eliot smirks down at you. He drops his forehead to yours and closes his eyes, working you towards to the end, listening to you whimper and whine softly, and feeling your walls clench around his fingers._

_When you come undone, your nails rake down his back, and he covers your mouth with his own, swallowing down your moans with fiery lips. He helps you ride it out, stroking your quivering walls slowly, until you gasp sharply and reach down to grasp his wrist._

_Eliot laughs softly against your lips, and withdraws his fingers from your dripping core. He bites your lower lip in a teasing nip, and you sigh warmly, your hands coming forward to comb all his hair back from his face._

_He moves, settles between your thighs, an arm braced in the pillows above your head, the other grabs your thigh and hooks it up on his waist. Wordlessly, he puts his thumb on your lips, his eyes burning through you, and you open just wide enough for him to slide the digit into your mouth._

_His eyelids droop as you suck and swirl your tongue around his thumb. He nudges the head of his cock into the dint of your opening._

_Tease._

_He smirks, and pulls his thumb from your mouth, “Naturally.”_

_You laugh, the corners of your eyes crinkling with it, and he smiles._

_His thumb, slick from your saliva peels back the hood of your clit and rubs it in small circles that grind it into the bone. Your breath cuts short, and shorter still when he begins sinking into you, inch by inch, stretching you with a delicious burn._

_“Fuck.” He hisses between his teeth when he’s fully sheathed in you, pulsing and hot, his thumb easing the pressure on your clit._

_“Yeah. If you’d be so kind,” you manage to sass, and he grits out a laugh._

_The first little thrust makes the both of you groan, when you throw your other leg around his waist, he hums, strained. His arm slips under your back to angle your hips up, and the next thrust is long and drawn out, and smooth, and you feel it in your damn blood._

_His eyes slipped closed, pretty lips parted to take quiet breaths as he plunges into you over and over-_

 

Eliot shoots up in bed, chest heaving, hands shaking. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple, and he groans out a confused breath. He throws the blankets off him, and punches out another groan. He’s fully hard, painfully so.

“Damn her.” He growls, raking a hand through his messy hair. With a scowl, he struggles to his feet, weak in the legs, and heads towards his door.

 

You wake up panting and sweating, and shaking, and aching between the legs. You kick the sheets off, and run your hands down your face, your cheeks ablaze in embarrassment. You hear the footsteps nearing your door and think nothing of them, given the enchantment on it, and you get out of bed with idea of getting a drink of water.

Your door swings open, and he steps in, all 6’ 2’’ of him and he’s livid.

You splutter, and take a tiny step back towards your bed.

“You,” he grounds out, lowly, and you flinch.

“I’m sorry,” you start to apologize frantically as he advances, your hands up in the universal sign for surrender. “I didn’t mean to- it just- it happened and I-“

He grabs the back of your neck and crushes his mouth against yours, his lips angry and feverish as they wake your own. By the time you respond he’s already pushing you back into your bed and you shiver.

You fall onto the mattress, and he follows you, his hand under the hem of the long t-shirt you sleep in. he finds the waist band of your lace panties and literally tears them off you.

You squeak into his mouth, and he grunts in response, his spine tingling when you bury your hands in his hair.

He sheds his boxers, his cock springing to attention, “Don’t need any foreplay, do we?” he asks when he breaks away to position himself, and you sigh, tight and airy,

“No we don’t.” you assure him, peppering kisses to his jaw and neck, and he slips a hand underneath you to grab a handful of your ass.

“I’m not going to be nice about this,” he warns you, trailing his lips across your forehead and temple.

“Shut up,” you say, and dig your heels into the back of his thighs, “and get inside me.”

He rumbles an appreciative hum in his throat, kisses your temple, and makes good on his warning.

He practically fucks you across the bed, and into it, and takes you over the edge three times before he’s even close. Your voice is raw, your skin coated in sweat, and every muscle you have is shaking. He dips down, nips at your earlobe,

“One more,” he husks, and you whimper,

“I don’t think I can-“

He rolls over, taking you with him. “I do.” His hands grab your hips in a steel-like grip, and he smirks up at you, his cheeks flushed from exertion, “I think you’ve got one more in you.” He moves you on him, that smirk set in place as your mouth drops open in an ‘o’.

You roll your hips into him, and cry out when he snaps his hips up into you striking that soft patch in you that makes white dance behind your lids. He chuckles darkly, and sacrifices his hold to rub circles into your clit.

You yelp, your hands slamming down on his chest for leverage as you bounce and grind down on him, lip between your teeth.

“Mm,” he hums, baring his teeth when he feels you quiver and clench around him. He takes your hands in his own, laces his fingers with yours and stretches his arms above his head, forcing you to lean down. Your lips brush his with every undulation.

His eyes lock with yours, pupils blown, your cheeks enflamed. He thrusts his hips up, spearing right into your g-spot with scary accuracy and you clamp around him with a ragged cry, he groans brokenly and bucks his hips sporadically as he spills into you.

You pant, and squeeze his hands as you slowly come down, your legs shaking and almost numb. Eliot’s breathless, staring up at you, dazed. He blinks tiredly, pretty eyes heavy,

“Can we actually sleep this time?” he asks, and you snicker with a tiny smile.

He offers the slightest support as you lift yourself off him. You both hiss as he leaves you, ignoring the dribble of semen that trickles down your thigh.

Eliot sighs, and wraps an arm around your back to pull you down. Your head rests over his heart which is still pounding, and you press a little kiss to his damp skin. He combs a hand through your hair with a content hum, and returns your kiss to the top of your head.

_I feel like I need to apologize,_ he thinks, trailing that hand up and down your back, drawing nonsense patterns into the soft fabric of your shirt.

_You don’t,_ you promise, closing your eyes.

_Okay._


	3. Rosewood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know someone: you gotta ask the real deep stuff, you know? Just because you're soulmates doesn't mean everything is going to come easy. It's a long road ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo. For those of you that give a singular fuck, hello! For those of you that don't, hi. I've no intentions to continue this into an actual story, but I can't anticipate my muse so who knows what will happen. If you haven't watched The Magicians, get on it, awesome show. Eliot is EVERYTHING. Kay, bye-bye now.

Eliot thinks, idly, lost in his pointless musings as he drags his fingertips along your thigh, eyes distant. Although, he listens to you, to your thoughts. He keeps his emotions separate, quiet.

_They don’t get it._

Eliot knows who you mean: everyone else in the cottage. You both often get puzzled looks, and hushed whispers thrown in your direction. It’s been a week since that night, and since that night he’s kept you close, practically sewn to his side every minute of every day that he can spare.

He thinks nothing of it: it feels right, feels comfortable, feels like a natural law, like gravity. No one says anything to him outright, questions his sudden turn of sexual orientation. And honestly, the question wouldn’t bug him. His answer would be simple: Soulmate. She’s my soulmate.

_I don’t get it…why would it be this messy?_

That he doesn’t know. He’ll give you that, the beginning of this was a mess, it was a small disaster. He could’ve handled it better, but you know what they say about hindsight.

His fingers stall, he lays his palm over your thigh and he tilts his head to rest his lips on top of your shoulder. “Because I’m an asshole,” he mumbles into your skin, and feels you cover his hand with your own.

“Nah, you’re just a little complicated,” you smile faintly and turn your head, your temple touching the crown of his head.

His chest jumps with a tiny laugh, and he puckers little kisses against the rise of your shoulder. There’s a soft murmur of conversation around the living room. Some of it about you two, as it always is, and some of it about other people and petty topics of gossip.

It doesn’t bother him any, the talk. Not while he’s got you on his lap, when he can bury his nose in your hair, when he can trace the softness of your thigh with his hand. No, doesn’t bother him any.

But… “You okay?” he asks in a low tone, eyes darting around the room at people he suspects are conversing about you.

“Yeah.” You answer truthfully, and turn your head a little more until his eyes meet yours. His eyes, you always get caught in them, in the expressions they exude, so open and lively. His dark eyelashes draw into sharper focus the rich color of his irises, sometimes a vibrant green, other times a dark chocolate brown.

Eliot smiles, the expression cheeky, and ducks his head, forehead on your shoulder as he chuckles softly.

“What?” you wonder aloud as his other arm snakes around your stomach, pulling you close.

“Nothing, just…” he breaks out in a full grin and lifts his head to pin you with an impish expression. “you think my eyes are dreamy.” He teases and laughs.

“Oh, shut up.” You roll your eyes, and lean back into him and both his arms wind around you. “But, yes. I do.”

“So, you got any plans for the holidays?” Eliot drops his chin on your shoulder, and stares over the curve of your chest to look at your legs dangling on the outside of his own. Your plain, soft jeans that have a hundred washes, and his pristine grey dress slacks that hug him like a second skin, the difference in your fashion is only one of many things that draw the simple fact into clear water: if not for the Thread neither one of you would have anything to do with the other.

“I…” you lick your lips and purse them, watch a couple students mix up a colorful drink and giggle to one another, giddy and bubbly. Carefree. “I might visit my family.” You say, and sigh heavily. 

Eliot’s eyebrows perk up. “Your family?” he says, and then hums a long note of contemplation that tickles your spine. “What are they like?”

“They, uh….I don’t know, they’re,” you fumble for words as you think of your mother, brother and father, cozy upstate in a house too big for them.

“What,” Eliot smirks, listening to your thoughts, “Are you- are you telling me you come from money?”

You chew the inside of your cheek, and inadvertently think of little things: the designer wine glasses in a mahogany cabinet, the granite countertops, the ornate French doors leading to the second-floor balcony-

Eliot leans back, his hands landing on your hips. “Holy shit.” He exclaims, stunned, and you wince.

You sigh and stand, and Eliot stares at you. Stares at your common jeans and your soft white cotton T-shirt, your tawny colored leather boots that are stained the shade of coffee in some places. Well-worn, seen some things.

He laughs, softly at first. And then he slides his hands up over his brows, his forehead, into his hair and throws his head back to belt it out.

You frown, and look around you, at the stares he’s attracting. You catch Margo’s expression from her place in the dining room, her perfectly shaped eyebrow arched saucily but not with venom, and you shrug your shoulders at her.

Intrigued, she stalks over, her heels clicking like some slowed down version of Morse code.

“I need a laugh,” she says, eyeing Eliot and then looks at you, expectant. But you just sigh.

Eliot’s laughter dwindles down into a chuckle and then he stands, immediately in your space, his hands finding easy purchase on your hips as he leans into you. “She’s loaded.” He explains, smirking down at you, and you form a crease in your brow, unsure of what to feel, unsure of how he feels.

Margo blinks, her luscious lashes batting rapidly. She flits her gaze between the two of you, scoffs, “Oh, sure. She- no. Come on.” Her red lipsticked lips pucker in disbelief, and you sigh again at her. You nod.

She gawks, and Eliot bites his lip, staving off a smile. “Irony.”

“Irony.” You agree, tepid.

“Wait-“ Margo holds up a hand, and you and Eliot both look at her, “Seriously?” she says, incredulous. She points at you, “What’s with the pauper get-up?”

You roll your eyes, “I’m afraid I’m just cliché: rich girl who has everything, doesn’t want anything, rebukes her fortune- Someone call Hollywood, we’ve got a blockbuster on our hands.” You snipe, and with teeth in your lip you break away from Eliot and head off.

Margo’s eyes are widened a fraction. “Touchy.”

Eliot frowns lightly, “I guess so,” he folds his arms over his chest, and watches you disappear down the hallways towards the backyard, the slope of your shoulders telling him that you’re stressed a fraction, a bit irritated.

“Do I,” Margo huffs a breath, cocks a hip and regards the hallway much the same way Eliot is: curious, a very light shade of regretful and still substantially shocked. “Do I have to apologize?” she asks, begrudgingly, and Eliot glances at her side-long,

“No.” he sits down, arms spread on the backrest behind him. “She’s not upset with you.” He states, matter of fact, and Margo purses her lips,

“You’d know, I suppose.” She takes a seat next to him, one leg thrown over the other, and confesses, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around…” she nods in the direction you went, and then Eliot himself, and Eliot copies her nod, though smaller.

“I know. Me too, sort of.” He admits, adjusting his auburn tie unnecessarily.

“Sort of?” Margo prompts, tossing a pillow to the other couch so she can lean back into the corner the armrest and backrest create.

Eliot shoots her a look, dry but slightly pessimistic, and pulls his cigarette case from behind his vest. “Come on. You know me.” He says, and puts a cancer stick between his lips, and Margo just stares, wondering where he’s going.

His lighter flickers to life, burns the end of his cigarette and he inhales. “Me. I’ve got a soulmate, Margo.”

He’s quiet, something bitter in his inhales that isn’t just smoke and Margo approaches his melodrama with practiced ease.

“Well, don’t be humble about it.” She twitches a smile and shakes her head.

Eliot shakes his head, stronger and exhales. “No- this is me. Like I said: you know me. What way does any of this work out?” He shoots a look towards the hallway, his mind closed to you, and yours to him.

It happened, kind of out of nowhere. The two of you worked out how to keep the other of your mind, locked up your minds tight with chains and fences and barbed wire, and he isn’t sure what that says about the two of you. Soulmates: but terrified and reluctant to share anything.

“Fuck if I know, I don’t do relationships.” Margo quips, but in a way that says she’s out of her depth, and Eliot snorts.

“Part of it is easy. She’s in the room, everything is fine, and I know what to do, who I’m supposed to be... But she leaves and then it’s just me, and I remember who I am.”

_What’s so wrong with who you are?_

Eliot stiffens in his seat and he shoots his eyes towards the hallway in alarm, expecting you to be there, but you aren’t. Doesn’t matter, his heartrate still increases.

“You know, for soulmates, you two are pathetically clueless about each other.” Margo states with a toss of her head and stands, Eliot huffs at her, though he doesn’t disagree, and Margo rests a hand on her hip, “Here’s an idea that might work: talk to her. Learn something about her-“

“What, like her favorite color?” he snarks, pulling a lungful of smoke, and Margo sighs. She throws her hands up and retreats for the moment.

_Blue. Navy Blue._

Eliot closes his eyes, kicks both his feet up on the coffee table. _Hometown?_

_Rochester._

Eliot laughs through his nose, and watches a few students flit around the living room aimlessly, no doubt finding it odd that he’s on his own. You’ve been his shadow for a week.

Rochester. Upstate New York.

Eliot heaves a sigh and pulls himself to his feet. He snatches a glass of wine for himself and turns down the hallway. _When did you first discover magic?_

There’s a pause, long enough for him to reach the backyard and find you sitting on the brick wall, gazing off towards the trees, and he stands on the threshold, quiet as he watches you ponder independently, without him pressing at your mind.

He watches the sun warm your hair, watches it shine, appreciates the luster the rays of light bring to your skin. Your hair ruffles in the breeze, sways around you like silk curtains, and he might or might not raise his glass to you in that moment. You’re so picturesque, sitting there on the cold stone, kicking your legs in leisurely contentment.

“I was seventeen,” you begin, and Eliot shifts on his feet, leans on the doorjamb and blocks out the noise of the cottage behind him. “Just got back from dance class-“ you hear Eliot in your mind, _Dance class? Mm, tell me you took Latin Dance-_ “It was salsa that week.” You peer over your shoulder at Eliot, and he gives you a quick sheepish smile, taming it around the rim of his glass.

You turn, throw a leg up on the concrete top of the wall, and letting your other leg dangle you brace an arm behind you. “My little brother, Leon, his favorite thing in the world was to piss me off,” You roll your eyes, remembering the little shit, and Eliot softly smiles at the pale affection behind your ire.

“So, he rolls into the dining room, chin tipped up, and he tells me: We’re gonna miss you, Y/N. I know how much you wanted to go to London.” You run your tongue across your teeth, reliving the memory, the glint in his cat-like blue eyes, the proud angle of his profile, his puffed chest, and you frown.

“It wasn’t that I was missing out, because I wasn’t. The last thing I wanted was to spend two weeks with them in close quarters, going to dinner talking about topics gilded in money and privilege, and high-class absolution, taking pictures with Hollywood smiles like we were a perfect family- I didn’t need that shit.” You laugh dryly, and Eliot grimaces faintly at this tale, at the taste it’s already leaving in his mouth.

“It was because I had to stay behind and take my classes, do my studies, attend socialite club. First born…I had to carry the name, whether I wanted to or not. My brother, I think he wishes that our places were swapped, that he could’ve filled in my shoes, but anyway-“ Eliot moves closer, staring down at his wine as he walks, watching ripples pulsate with each step across the deep richness of it, your words roll smoothly over him but they go down hard, bitter.

“He walks in there, brandishing what he knows I want more than anything, and he wields like a knife, like it’s a weapon that he has instead of a gift. He didn’t have to do shit, he just got to do whatever the Hell, there were no expectations on him. He rubbed that in, rubbed it in until I was seeing red and it- just happened…”

Eliot puckers his mouth, places his wine glass on the wall and then leans on it, forearms braced across the scratchy surface as he listens devoutly. To him, it sounds like confession, and he’s all too ready to absolve you of whatever you’ve done…if he can.

“It wasn’t just one thing it was the _entire room._ Just up in flames, and he falls back into the table, screaming. He catches flame and then he’s screaming for a different reason, and I don’t know to do, all I know is that it’s my fault. So I take off my jacket and I try to put him out, but Hell if I’m not still pissed off…”

Eliot stares at his hands, interlocks his fingers, and swallows. There’s so much tied up in this memory: anger, loathing, helplessness, disappointment, obligation, fear…he doesn’t know what to approach first, what to say.

“I guess…I guess I passed out. When I came to the room was smoking, smoldering, ashes were crumbling away from everything. Luckily the fire died when I went dark, so Leon was okay. But, man, my mother was in hysterics, my brother was catatonic, you know, seeing his life flash before his eyes I suppose he never imagined it would be like that.”

He snickers, and takes that moment to reach over and wrap his hand around your calf, “Your dad, what was his reaction?”

You look at him, whet your lips. “Didn’t really have much of one. He stood on the edge of the room, he had the thumb of one hand hooked into a pocket of his slacks, the other was holding a cigarette just a few inches from his mouth, and he looked around the room, slowly, his eyes gave away nothing, they were just numbly appraising the damage. He didn’t say anything, to any of us. Just brushed the whole incident under the rug.”

Eliot squints, cocks his head. “He knew, though, right? That it was you?”

You smile wryly. “Yeah, he knew. Hiram knew.”

Eliot notes the use of your father’s first name, gathers the status of your relationship with the man, but says nothing of it. He just strokes your calf, lets you sip his glass of wine, and roves his eyes over the porous surface of the concrete.

“I learned when I was 14. Killed someone.”

Your eyebrows raise to your hairline, “Shit.”

Eliot scoffs, and smiles despite himself. “Yes,” he nods. “Shit.”

“I wonder if anyone ever discovered magic without having their soul sucked from them?” You muse, your hand falls to the side of his face, thumb stroking his cheekbone, and he tips his head back,

“Maybe. But I figure, there’s a price to pay for it: magic. There’s so much we can do with it, no way it comes free.” He smiles sadly, his eyes vulnerable, something raw in them, something so… _broken._

You slide down off the wall, and he straightens to his full height, his hands landing on your hips as you lean into him, fingers curling into pants pockets. He holds your gaze, holds you, and you return the favor.

“Maybe it doesn’t come free, but nothing ever has. Maybe there’s someone out there keeping score that stops us from racking up too many wins, who knows? But,” You tilt your head back, and brave a smile for him, “But I think that’s the point: nothing great comes easy, I think half of what makes something ‘great’ is the price we pay for it, and then what we do with it is the other half.”

Eliot’s hands splay wide across your back, and he turns, leaning into the wall and you step between his legs. “So then…what’s the price we gotta pay for _this_?” he asks, his eyebrows anchoring down harshly, but his eyes are soft, weak. “Because I don’t think we’ve payed it.”

You slide your hands up his chest, lace them behind his neck, “Worried the price will be too high?”

Eyes closed, he shakes his head, “Maybe. This could be the first thing in my life that’s worth _something_.”

_Oh, Eliot Waugh. You’re the only thing in my life that’s worth everything._

His breath hitches audibly, and he swallows shakily. His eyebrows jump up-down, and he chuckles weakly, “Bad deal you’ve found yourself in.”

You grin, “No, you don’t know how good I’ve got it.” You tell him, smiling like mad, and you stand on tip-toes.

Eliot grabs the back of your neck, wraps an iron strong arm around your lower back and hauls you right up to his lips. He kisses you, full and heavy, his lips warm and soft. He tastes like cigarettes and the smoothness of wine, and you pine for the flavor, shiver for the sweetness that is his tongue across your lip.

And he clings to the lightness, the naivety of your feelings for him. He pulls you close, close as he can get because this is the purest thing he’s ever felt. The most vulnerable thing he’s ever had in his arms, and it’s humbling but exhilarating at the same time, and he wants to cherish- to covet.

He slants his lips on yours, tilts the angle just right, works the kiss fat and languid and makes you _ache_ for it. Damn near makes you swoon, but even as your grip loosens, as you melt, he holds fast.

Eliot doesn’t plan on letting go any time soon either.


	4. Green Like Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's beginning to get attached, he's beginning to realize that he can't walk away. He's in for this, for the long haul. He's only sorry you don't have a better soulmate. He's sorry you don't see the failure that he is, and you...you're just dumbfounded with how little he thinks of himself.

He stares down at his phone, a frown tugging his lips into a harsh line. He’s in his call logs, fighting the irritation and the disappointment. 20 calls within the last hour, all left unanswered, and he’s paced so much his legs have started to tingle.

Eliot sighs, drags a hand through his curly locks, and takes a seat on the stairs, phone in his hands dangling between his legs. He watches the door. Sure, yeah, he has shit he needs to get done, but that’s what lying and subterfuge are for. He’s never busted his ass on something like studying or homework and he isn’t about to start now.

The door opens and he perks up, spine stretched rigid straight and he immediately deflates upon seeing Margo walk in.

“Glad to see you too.” She snarks, a hand already on her hip.

Eliot rolls his eyes. “Sorry.” He stares at her, the possibility of making conversation imminent, but really all that’s on his mind is you. Where you are, where you’ve been, has Margo seen you, why can’t he _feel_ you…the list goes on.

She can see it. Written all over his face. She purses her lips flat, and sighs. “Go ahead. Ask me if I’ve seen her-“

“Have you seen her?!” Eliot stands in one fluid move, hand tightening on his phone and Margo’s eyes widen.

“Yes, fuck,” she murmurs, tone some pale shade of irritated and surprised. She blinks and shakes her head, “She’s in that café across from the gym-“

“The Lounge?” Eliot interrupts, already on his way to the door, and Margo kind of follows him,

“Yeah. Studying or working on some kind of assignment,” There’s a thoughtful wrinkle in her brow, “Might have been a partner project.”

His hand on the door knob, Eliot stalls. “Partner project? What makes you say that?” Eliot’s focusing on the few inches of wood in front of him, trying to shake the sudden tension in his shoulders.

“I don’t know, some guy sat down at her table. Never seen him before though,” she’s remembering him now, remembering his looks, and she remarks, rather uncouth, “Kinda hot. I’d fuck him.”

Eliot tugs the door open, his mind running miles ahead of his body. “Well, feel free.” He snaps and rushes out, leaving Margo to stare after him in mute shock.

The door slams shut, and it makes her jump. “Jeez,” she grumbles. “It’s not like it’s actually possible for either of you two to cheat on each other.” She shakes her head hotly, and stalks off to get herself a drink.

Eliot strides, fast, hard steps. His boot’s heels tap harshly, but not as harsh as his fingers on his phone as he tries to call you, repeatedly. You don’t answer. And though he knows better, he can only think of you and this mystery guy hitting it off. You laughing at his jokes, or noticing how attractive he is.

Maybe this guy will act confused about something, lean over to point it out, get close-

He breaks into a jog, uncaring of the strange looks he garners from people. Because no one in a navy blue vest over a light blue shirt wearing a maroon suit jacket would be jogging like he is. No one. And Eliot Waugh doesn’t run. For anything.

He’s calm, collected, untouched by everything. He’s impenetrable, outwardly. Everyone buys what he sells.

No, Eliot Waugh doesn’t care about anything. So, why would he run?

He’s still calling you. He’s dodging people on the street, phone to his ear, and now he’s pressing at you, pushing your wards with all of his weight, and it makes him crazy that he isn’t making any progress. A head ache blooms behind his eyes, his temples pulse, but he shoves enough that can sneak through. He can feel you for a second.

And you’re shocked, confused, a little put-off that he’s invaded your privacy.

_Y/N._ Is all that he can get out because a second later your wards are patched and repaired and he’s locked out.

Eliot stops, and breathes deep at the wave of nausea that crashes over him, the pain in his head, and he attempts to not feel hurt that you blatantly slammed a door in his face. He tells himself that you don’t really know how worked up he is and if you did know, you’d have let him in without a second thought.

He presses his fingers into his closed lids and rubs them free of the heat beating across them, he draws his shoulders back, swallows hard and carries on. With a tight jaw, and clenched hands, and a need to prove something.

The café is around the corner, just around the corner. He widens his gait, narrows his gaze, swerves the corner and he’s locked onto you like he knew exactly where you would be seated. And he inhales a sharp breath.

There you are, leaning across a table littered with papers and notebooks, and old books and he’s sitting across from you. This guy with cheekbones that could cut stone, eyes that could chill a volcano, olive skin that shines with vibrancy. And tattoos, tattoos of black that are stark against the color of skin.

Eliot’s jaw aches. But he keeps going, and everything narrows down to this table that you’re at, with this random guy that speaks inherent, second-nature sex appeal, and he’s livid. Yes, livid. He’s fucking _wrathful._

It winds up your spine like a sparking tail of lightning, and it leaves a copper taste in your mouth, and you get words in your mind. _Mine. second-rate. nobody. motherfucking home wrecker._ And you know it isn’t you. It’s Eliot.

He’s so infuriated that you can’t keep him completely out. Little things are sneaking through, and you wonder just what has him so mad. You don’t get to wonder for long, because a second later he waltzes in, fire in his wake and he’s bee-lining straight for you, his eyes dark and thunderous.

Your eyes widen to size of saucers, and Kit pops an eyebrow up at you, “You alright? You having an epiphany about this shit-pile?” He’s hopeful on that last bit.

You splutter as Eliot approaches, only able to gape and twitch your fingers. It hits you as he nears, becomes clear. He’s jealous.

“I am not.” Is the first thing he says when he reaches your table, his eyes pinned to yours. Unceremoniously, he thrusts a hand in the direction of Kit. “I’m Eliot.”

Leon cautiously shakes his hand, a tiny crease in his brow. “Kit. Uh- you’re Y/N’s-“

“Boyfriend. Yes.” Eliot interrupts and spares the barest moment to look at Kit, to strap him with a look that is somehow acidic, but also aloof. Like he isn’t intimidated by his appearance.

When Eliot looks back at you, Kit tries to fight a smile, all the while staring at you. He bites his lips, “Uh- look, Y/N-“ He ducks his head, and clears his throat, more than aware of what’s going on, inconsiderate of your embarrassment- “I’m gonna head out. I’ve got uh-“

Kit snorts abruptly, and then shoots the rest of it into his elbow under the guise of a cough. Neither you or Eliot buys it. Eliot, like you, has taken to staring at Kit, albeit he’s doing it trying to light him on fire without words or hand movements. It isn’t working out too well.

“I’ve got- shit! I’ve got shit to do!” He’s up out of his seat, palms out because the game is up and he’s just plain laughing now. You both watch him leave, backing out of the café, his smile tugged wide, one hand in a pocket, the other waves at you when he reaches the door.

He waves again on the other side of the window-

“Fuck that guy.” Eliot scowls at him, and you gape.

“Fuck him?” You point in the direction he left, aghast and disbelieving. “Fuck _him_?” you repeat, and it makes Eliot rolls his eyes.

He sits down across from you, scoops up some papers, spares them a glance and moves them. He spends the next few seconds rearranging the table while you glower at him mildly.

“You’re jealous.” You tell him, flat out. And it causes his head to snap up, his jaw works a couple times on the joints and then he runs his tongue across the backs of his teeth,

“No. I’m not.” He denies, his lips thin, and you shoot him a look, a look that Sam Winchester would respect. The bitchface of all bitchfaces.

You lean back in your seat and fold your arms over your chest. “No?”

“No.” Eliot twists a ring on his index finger, eyes drawn to it…He sighs. “Fine. Yes! Fuck.”

You rub at your eyes, drag the motion down over your cheeks and then sweep the motion back to hold the nape of your own neck. “Oh my g- Why?”

Eliot’s features wind somewhere between sour and softly vulnerable. He shrugs. He pulls out his cigarette case, aware that smoking isn’t allowed in here, and giving less than two shits about it. “You don’t see it.” He mumbles under his breath.

You squint. “Don’t see what?” You watch him light his cigarette and wonder what it says about you that you always feel the need to kiss him after he inhales. Always. Eliot holds his breath, and regards you thoughtfully, but underneath his still demeanor is a storm, the last vestiges of one anyway, and you let your wards collapse to dust. For him.

His throat jumps as he feels you open for him, feels your patience, your understanding, your want to appease him. But God- he feels what you feel _for him_ and his throat constricts. “You don’t see what I am. What a trainwreck I am. I just-“ he rolls his eyes lightly, and takes another deep pull of his cigarette, “You could do better than me-“

_Eliot-_

_Let me finish._

You purse your lips, your eyebrows furrowing, and you keep quiet. For a moment at least.

“you could do better than me,” He repeats, eyebrows raising for added convincing, “Except you can’t because of this Red String bullshit, and you think you’ve hit the lottery with me.” He sighs through his nose, his tone going flat, and he turns his head to look out the window at all the passerby.

You swallow hard, and wipe your palms on your jeans. “Okay. Can I- can I tell you something?”

Eliot peers at you side-long, but nods. He seems to have gotten smaller, somehow.

“My first night at Brakebills…I was going to kill myself.”

Eliot snaps straight, his eyes going wide with your confession. He looks at you, bleeding panic, and one of his hands balls into a fist. His throat jumps with a few hard swallows. He seems to have lost the ability to speak.

You dawn a small smile for him, and explain yourself. “I figured it would be easier around a bunch of strangers, people who didn’t care about me, people I didn’t care about,” you brush a few papers off to the side of the table and brace your arms in the free space. “I wasn’t scared to do it, I was going to,” You trail off, remembering the day, the preparation you went through, the pep talks you gave yourself, and Eliot sees everything, looks through your memories and knows you’re telling the truth.

You grin, suddenly, and reach across the table to grab his wrist, and his gaze jumps down to your hand. “But then you were just there, half-gone, introducing yourself with this deer-in-the-headlights look-“

“You don’t think about it anymore, do you?” He interrupts you, and stubs his cigarette out on the table, leaving a burn mark.

You blink. “What?”

Eliot leans forward, his eyes riveted on you. He grabs your wrist, “You don’t think about…” _Suicide, do you?_

You shake your head, “No. No, I don’t have a reason to. In fact, I have a pretty good reason _not_ to.”

Eliot sighs, his shoulders drooping in relief. He glances down at all your papers, and looks back up at you. “Home?” he asks you, because he needs home, he needs the familiar. The light glinting off of wine glasses and cocktails, the comfy chairs and couches, the slightly whimsical décor. He needs you.

“Yeah,” you smile. He lets you go, only to pile all work and books into your satchel bag, and then he’s standing, offering you a hand. Which you gladly take.

You don’t get far.

His hands cup the sides of your neck, thumbs over your jaw bone, and leans down to lay a warm, big, heavy kiss on your mouth. You hum into the kiss, caught off guard, and curl your fingers around his belt, your heart thumping like a drum in your chest.

You lean into him, not minding the fact that it requires you to crane your neck. Your grip becomes firm, your want turning into something palpable, something he can taste when he coaxes the kiss open, and he lives for it.

_Home?_ You think, and he hums at you.

_In a minute,_ he replies, and buries a hand in your hair. _In a minute._

You’ve no complaints. _I can’t believe you were jealous._

“Shut. Up.” He mumbles against your lips, twitching a pale smile, and you say no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o! I've nothing except an apology for those of you that are waiting on something else from me. But I was feeling the Eliot vibe today so I wrote a little something. 'Kay, bye-bye now. <3


	5. Golden Days Of Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherever you are, he is also. Eliot hates him, hates him so much he's thinking about making t-shirts: If your name is Kit, fuck you. But more than he hates Kit, you love him, which is outrageous. And Eliot realizes, that he loves you, a lot more than he thought possible. He can't wait for the rest of his life with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking fuck I actually made myself cry with this chapter. It was supposed to be all jealousy, and possessive Eliot and then I wrote mush. Gooey mush. And- fuck. I love Eliot. GOD JUST GIVE HIM A HAPPY ENDING. If God won't, I will.

The music is loud enough to drown out the mess in your head, and the coffee is so bitter it causes all the muscles in your stomach to clench when it touches your tongue. Kit is sitting across from you, looking and feeling the same as you.

There are dark circles under his eyes, and his skin is shades paler than its natural olive luster. You’ve both been here since before sunrise, bent over the table and scouring your textbooks, raking hands through your hair in frustration.

“Remind me again why I joined you in these advanced courses?” Kit complains and tosses his coffee stirrer at you across the table.

It lands in your lap, and you frown at the chewed end of it, but you tear your earbuds out and look at him. “Because you were eligible. And I like to think you were attracted to the shine of my greatness.”

Kit rolls his eyes and takes his hands through another run of his hair. It surely looks a mess by now. His maroon beanie sits on the chair next to him along with his satchel and laptop. “Don’t kid yourself. You looked like you needed help. I’m just a good guy.”

“You know,” you flick the coffee stirrer off your lap and put your forearms on the table, laying on all the papers and sheets, and messy notes, and you cock your head. “They didn’t randomly pair us up.”

Kit crosses his arms over his chest, muscles in his forearms popping out, veins on the backs of his hands stressing. His changeable eyes weigh on you in contemplation as he chews his words.

The espresso machine hisses in the background and squeals, a sound that has long since worked its way into the white noise section of life. This yours and Kit’s usual haunt, where you do all of your schoolwork; in the corner next to the window, under a hanging lamp whose wiring is temperamental on good days and nonexistent on bad ones.

“I know.” He’s staring out the window, his eyes flitting here and there, following cars, people, pigeons in flight.

You glance away, at the counter, and find the staff eyeing you both. You sigh. “We’re nearing the loitering mark, you know?”

Kit pops an eyebrow, and you assume it’s at you: his attention is still on the outside of the café. His lips quirk suddenly, subtly, but you notice all the same.

He stands, swipes his beanie from his chair, and stretches. Stretches all the muscles he has, 6’ of olive tan skin pulled taut, and he groans in euphoria.

Now you’re quirking your eyebrows at him, and he smirks, tugs his beanie over his messy black locks and fishes underneath the stationery chaos on the table for his wallet.

“What do you want, you hungry?” he asks you, his gaze flitting towards the window, a spark appears in his sharp eyes.

“I- uhm…”

“Eh, no big deal,” he says nonchalantly,

The door chimes, and even with Kit’s frame in the forefront of your vision you know Eliot just walked in. It’s the pull in you, the way the air feels lighter, the race of your pulse and how suddenly Kit seems to be the most irritating, obstructing thing in the world.

His smirk is no longer subtle, wallet in hand, Kit winks at you. “I know what you like.” He basically purrs, innuendo so thick on the words you could cut them up and serve them.

_Fucking dick. Pretty boy. Light him on fire. Not even her type. Yeah. Yeah, you’d better walk away._

Eliot glares at Kit all the way to the counter, even as he walks to you. _Piece of shit. Never have a chance with her. Kill him if there weren’t any witnesses._

As Eliot’s hand curls around the back of Kit’s chair, you bite your lip at his inner monologue.

“Eliot,” you wipe the smile off your mouth, and watch him drag Kit’s chair around the table towards you. Petty, but you expect no more, no less. “He’s just-”

“A dick.” Eliot finishes bitterly, sitting down next to you in ‘Kit’s’ chair. “What’s his deal, anyway?” he drapes an arm over the back of your chair, and glares at Kit’s back.

“What do you mean?” you wrap your earbuds around your iPod and shove it back into your bag.

“Doesn’t this guy have any friends?”

You pause a moment to think. You and him spend a lot of time together, and he never talks about anyone else, or has any funny anecdotes to tell concerning other people. But he’s so bright and attractive-

“Oh, he’s attractive now?” Eliot frowns hard.

“Well, to be fair, he’s always been attractive.” You report blandly, not at all affected by the narrowing of Eliot’s eyes. “If he does have other friends he doesn’t talk about them. Anyway, Kit and I were paired up for studies, and they take a lot of time. Socializing and friend-making isn’t something we have room for.”

Eliot toys with some of your hair, twirling between his index and middle finger. “I’ve noticed. You’ve missed some A-list parties, you know?” Out of boredom, he curls the section of your hair he’s playing with, magic weaving into the strands sightlessly, and then quirks an eyebrow, _Look’s good curled._

“Oh, I do know,” you say and turn in your chair to face him. You have a soft smile on your face, “I’ve heard all about them from students complaining they’re still hungover a week-after the fact,” Eliot’s eyes shine with pride, and you snicker, “A lot of them think I can convince you to dial down the drinks.”

Eliot snorts, and shakes his head, white teeth glinting in the poor light as he fruitlessly fights a smile. “I’d do a lot of things for you…” he lets the sentence trail off and goes back to your hair, his eyes and features lighter in nature.

“Oh, hey there. So glad you decided to stick around.” Kit greets Eliot from half way across the room, carrying a tray of drinks and wrapped cookies, and a croissant. The grin on his face is shit-eating, he’s here to make life unbearable.

Eliot’s lips thin out in annoyance. “How have you been? I don’t hear anything about you these days.” He doesn’t look at Kit, Eliot’s eyes are stuck on you, on your profile and the smile you valiantly fight.

Kit sits down and begins distributing the goodies. “Well, that’s typically how affairs work.”

You snort, and even though Eliot know affairs are literally impossible, it doesn’t prevent him from throwing Kit a scathing look, or from dropping his arm around your shoulders.

“You’re a piece of shit.” Eliot comments loosely, disregarding your warning look to stare right at Kit.

Kit is all smiles. “Yes. Yes, I am,” A pecan and white chocolate cookie lands in front of you, along with a vanilla latte. Lithely, a caramel macchiato finds its way to Eliot.

He is, of course, wary and childish. He scowls vehemently at the coffee in its unassuming brown cardboard sleeve. Conversation between you and Kit carries on, about all this nonsense strewn about the table. Eliot doesn’t understand a word of it, but he enjoys watching you put your whole focus, all your attention and passion into something.

You get this adorable little crease between your eyebrows, and your nose scrunches up like you’re fighting a sneeze-

_Eliot, I’m trying to focus._

He smiles. _Try harder._

_Drink your macchiato before it gets cold._

A smirk dances across his lips like a needle on a record as he watches a soft blush creep onto your cheeks the way a half-thought out sentence tumbles over someone’s lips. He humors you. He removes the stirring stick from the lid, and parts his lips to lick the foam off when an idea occurs. One that he fractures and breaks hurriedly because you’re both still _open_ with one another.

Eliot catches Kit’s eye briefly, and the plan is a seed planted.

Non-chalantly, he offers the stirring stick to you, and occupied as you are you don’t think twice about accepting it into your mouth. Eliot is always giving you last dregs of his drinks, and the morsels of whatever meal he can’t finish.

At this point it’s second-nature.

Two things strike you. The first is that even though the stirrer is in your mouth, Eliot still has a hold on it, and the second is that he’s pulling it from you.

You look at him now in curiosity as the stirrer passes your lips, and he drags the end of it down your bottom lip. His expression is innocent, all, _isn’t it nice to share things?_ But as you continue to hold his easy gaze, he slips in his façade. His lips quirk the barest amount, and then he just decides to follow through with a bold wink.

“Uh- You guys aren’t going to fuck on the table, are you?”

Eliot’s eyes spark. “Not this one, no.”

And cue the full-body blush. “Y-you. You’re just…”

Kit is hiding a smile behind a hand. He isn’t at all put-off or embarrassed. He simply finds your embarrassment amusing. Truth be told, he sees you as nothing but a friend, and only goads Eliot because he’s so easy to rile up.

“Well, that is something I’ve never seen before,” Kit remarks leaning back in his chair to stretch his legs and cross them at the ankles. He smiles in your direction, “Y/N. Speechless. It’s a damn miracle.”

Eliot glares. _How dare he? I’m embarrassing you, not him. He doesn’t get to just butt in and-…fuck, I hate this guy._

_Eliot- Jeesus._

_What?_

You shake your head, the blush well on its way to fading, and take a careful sip of your latte. Eliot is still wired tightly but he can feel your contentment and it’s enough to dampen the scowl on his face.

Eliot idly drags his fingertips along your arm, up and down the smooth interior of your forearm as you continue to sip slowly and cautiously at your drink and he smells the vanilla, the softness, the airy quality, the sweetness of its light flavor and all of a sudden he realizes he’s not musing the flavor of vanilla. He’s musing and describing you, your nature.

That’s you every time you look at him, when your hands run the width of his shoulders before they slide around to hug him from behind. It’s your laugh when he’s said something rude and in a dry tone, garnering attention from judgmental eavesdroppers. _God_ , it’s how you kiss him first when you know he’s not paying attention, you catch him off guard and you keep him there.

It’s the way you run your fingers through his hair when his head is in your lap and his mind is racing, crumbling and fraying at the edges, and it’s the way you look at him when he goes quiet there and your fingers stop, they leave his hair and they wander over his face, touching gently, reverently. It’s the way you talk to him afterward, after he’s showed you where his mind has been, and your tone, your patient, affectionate tone makes him think that if he believed in a God you would be his high priest.

It takes him time, time to realize that he isn’t looking at you anymore because his head buried in the curve of your shoulder leading to your neck, and he’s got you pulled almost into his lap, his other hand curled around your knee, and you’re _there,_ listening to him.

And he’s so out of his mind and sucked into you that he doesn’t realize his lips are moving, and he’s muttering softly under his breath, words that don’t filter in quite yet, but you hear them with your ears and in your head (a mantra of _Thank you_ pours from him). Your hand falls over his own, thumb running over his knuckles, no words, just soft as you coax his hand into your own and when you do he feels the blood rush back into his fingers.

He’s somewhere, in a memory, a far distant memory or maybe it’s a hopeful fantasy that he’s fallen into- _drowning in. The background is blurry, sound muffled, people mill about around you both, shapeless globs of color that don’t matter because he’s got you trapped in the length of his arm, the other is around your shoulders, toying in your hair that is long now, longer than he’s ever seen it. He sways you both to music that is unclear, and your hands rest lightly on his chest, curled just ever so softly into fists on top of his dark purple suit jacket._

_And he sees that time has passed, years, because your eyes speak volumes, and the laughing lines around your mouth tell of innumerable smiles. Your body is touching his, leaning into him, and he’s satisfied with you right where you are, so close he can smell your shampoo and watch reflections of light dance in your eyes._

_One of your hands rises to cup his cheek and something glints on one of your fingers, something gold. And he knows when your hand rests against the curve of his face, and he feels something cold touch his cheekbone, he knows. A ring. A wedding band._

_He’s floored, astonished, struck in awe of your devotion and he grabs that hand, and he presses his lips to your knuckles. He’s at a loss for words, he’s so overwhelmed at the sheer goodness of this, of you. He can’t fathom the how, or the why, he just soaks in the saccharine idea- truth -that nothing could be better than this._

_Until it is. He hears a small voice, one that’s exuding happiness and energy, break out above the din and noise of the background. Young, joyful, carrying a note of playfulness. Eliot is still looking at you, even as you turn your head, as he’s working out what that voice said._

_Mommy._

_Mommy, it said, and you were turning your head, a smile on your lips and Eliot’s breath leaves him._

_And then it comes rushing back when he hears: Daddy!_

_It’s familiar, suddenly, this voice, as if he’s heard it a thousand times. He blinks as color moves in his peripherals, as it slowly sharpens and clears, and a mop of curly dark hair bounces towards the both of you. He can’t breathe, but it causes no alarm._

_That smile of yours grows wider, and a laugh breaks out of you when weight collides into Eliot’s legs and he feels tiny arms wrap around his knees._

_He turns his head,_ and he’s looking out the café window with a stupefied expression on his face as reality slams back into him at a million miles per hour.

And he feels young and weightless and the background is loud but your hand squeezes his own and he’s struck suddenly with a feeling of anxiety: his eyes are darting around the café for a mop of curly brown almost black hair when he realizes that he isn’t going to find _him_. He doesn’t have any kids, he’s 24 and not emotionally equipped to care for a fragile, small human being. He can barely take care of himself.

But he feels off-kilter. There’s this strange desire, this pull, his hands feel empty, and he can remember them feeling so large as he hefted a tiny version of himself onto his lap and pressed his lips into hair so much like his own. He aches abruptly for that which he never had, and never wanted.

But he feels your lips on the back of his hand, both your hands still intertwined and he looks at you. This younger you that is vanilla, soft and sweet and welcoming and he can see in you the absence of those years, the miles the two of you haven’t yet journeyed and there’s a weight to your eyes that tells him that you were _there._ You saw, and he wants to know,

“What was that?” His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, and it quivers.

You smile at him gently, and there are no laughing lines yet, but it’s so full and warm that Eliot stops looking for evidence of a life not yet lived almost as soon as he’s begun.

_A promise._

_A promise?_ He echoes, searching your eyes.

_“I promise,”_

_He’s there again, and those tiny arms are around his legs, he’s letting go of you to pick up his son who squeals in delight and Eliot’s never felt so complete in his life as his hands find purchase under his son’s armpits and then he’s situating him on his hip. Messy curls tumble down onto a small forehead, and bright hazel eyes meet his own-_

_“We’ll have that one day.”_

Eliot’s breath stutters, his lips tremble as, far in his mind, he clings to a fading echo of a sweet voice pleading that he do “Magic tricks, daddy!”. His hands- shaking, he notices ( _Fucking Hell, Y/N.) -_ cup your face, feather-light, and his eyes bore into your own.

_I promise, too,_ his thumbs brush your cheekbones- _he_ had your cheekbones -and he blinks back against the sting in his eyes.

“What the fuck’s up with you guys?”

Eliot’s eyes slide closed as Kit interrupts, rudely.

He cuts his hazel eyes towards your friend, “Learn how to read a room, dick-wad. Can you fuck off now?”

Kit’s eyebrows raise.

You sigh softly, but lean forward and up to plant a warm kiss to Eliot’s forehead.

Wordlessly, Eliot settles back into his seat and resumes drinking his macchiato, his mind preoccupied as he watches customers flit here and there, and he listens to you and Kit talk about magic way out of his league and passed his understanding.

He thinks to himself, safely boarded behind his walls.

He loves you. He loves you. _He_ loves you.

Eliot’s hand is on the back of your neck as you write and hypothesize and lean over the table, and he occasionally swipes his thumb over your spinal column.

He loves you.

Kit scratches his head through his beanie, teeth digging into his lower lip as he thinks hard about whatever you just said…and then he shakes his head. ‘No, listen!’ you hiss at him, and turn a book around on the table to shove it at him in exasperation as you explain again.

Eliot loves you.

He smiles to himself, he continues smiling even when he catches Kit’s eye and Kit furrows his brows at him. He smiles when you shoot him your own look, and just shrugs, because you don’t know.

But he tells you three months later as you’re sitting on the railing around the perimeter of a pond, swinging your legs. He’s behind you, arms wrapped around your stomach, his chin on top of your head, and he occasionally kisses your temple, your forehead when you look up at him, your cheek, jaw, your neck when he leans down far enough.

He tells you as you tilt your head back into the beaming warmth of the sun with your eyes closed and the wind tussling your hair. And your eyes flash open in alarm, only for you to snap them shut a second later because you’ve looked straight into the sun. Your hands land on top of his as you calm down, and you can _feel_ his smile.

He continues smiling after you’ve regained your composure, your hands sliding along to grasp his wrists. He listens for you.

It’s a beat, a soft silence that appears to fall. And a suddenness with which Eliot breaks it. A beaming smile on his lips brighter than the sun, he tugs you off the railing and spins you around as you laugh heartily.

Those hands that you adore bury themselves in your hair as he leans down to kiss you. He’s slow, and heavy and warm about it, it’s like honey and butter and cinnamon if you had to put a flavor on the kiss, on the way that he pushes you up against the railing and makes you bend for him, makes you ache for the contact he’s never denied you.

Gentle, and almost sleepily he kisses you, he’s thorough. He feels you melt around him, the greatest thing he ever does on a daily basis, and then he pulls you back together with your neck in the crook of his elbow and his other arm around the base of your back.

And he asks, ever so softly, as he kisses you over and over, _Say it again._

And you respond, ever so sweetly, as he continually steals your breath, _I love you._

It’s only four months later that he proposes, stumbling over his words with a hand rubbing the back of his neck, and his legs are so weak that when he kneels he almost falls over, but he asks you. And you tell him yes, over and over, and when he kisses you to shut you up, he hears it in his head. Over and over.

A week later, he meets Quinten Coldwater, and your lives change in ways neither one of you could ever prepare for. First and foremost being that Eliot becomes fast friends with Quinten, and Quinten, somehow, ends up becoming friends with Kit- and dear God, does Eliot curse every God, demigod, and force of nature on the planet for it. And you soak up every minute of it.

Life, as it continually proves to you…is strange ( _as fuck)._ But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not important, but I seriously love Kit and Eliot's relationship. Like, Kit isn't even a threat, but Eliot would shoot him for holding a door open for you, and then slam that door into Kit's corpse. I just imagine Eliot sitting around coming up with ways to kill Kit without you knowing, and I just-


	6. Empty Like Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew it was too good to be true, he knew he'd be cheated out of his happiness. That's the worst part, really, that he was happy. Something he convinced himself he'd never be, simply to save himself heartache. He's never felt so hollow, so...dead. But the pulse that beats under his skin tells him that he's wrong and that's the most painful thing he realizes on a day to day basis: he's still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know no one gives a shit about this story, except maybe one person (And I'm almost completely convinced that one person is me), but I've just felt the Eliot vibe for the last couple of days, sorry.

He’s been inconsolable for hours, hours he doesn’t realize are quickly turning into days because he’s been rendered senseless and unreachable by the alcohol he imbibes minutely. He wanders the cottage slowly, his footsteps heavy and laborious, he can’t see straight, can’t hear right, can’t think right.

People get out of his way as he staggers through doorways and hallways with a vacant gaze. Margo has been steps behind him, watching him like a hawk with a worried crease between her near perfect eyebrows, and Quinten checks in hourly to inquire about his condition. No change.

Eliot hasn’t spoken a word, not a one for nearly a week. The only time his lips part is to allow alcohol to pour into his mouth in a seemingly endless torrent, or to smoke a cigarette.

He’s taken time off from Brakebills, the classes at least, so he has nowhere to be, ever.

He’s thinking about leaving entirely.

His mind is so empty. So cold. His mind is open and searching. Searching for you. But you’re nowhere in the vast ocean of his thoughts, of his desires and longing, his childish wishes and his heart-wrenching fantasies.

He’s left the cottage, out through the back door, and he walks without a backward glance as he reminisces.

_“So, what is all this shit?” He asks, lounging on your bed, leaning against your headboard, smoking a cigarette. He’s talking about all your schoolwork, this plethora of languages and symbols and numbers and herbs. It’s all above him._

_“This,” You say, and waggle a sheet of paper at him, “Is magic, dear. Theoretical. It’s more research than lessons…” you trail off as you’re sucked back into your work and Eliot’s face pinches slightly._

_“Theoretical…that sounds dangerous.” His cigarette is forgotten momentarily, preoccupied as he is with thoughts of you in any situation that is less secure than you being in his arms._

_“Hm? Yeah, yeah a little bit, but that’s why they pair us up.”_

_“I don’t…” Eliot shakes his head and sits up, plants his hand on top of a sheet of paper with arcane symbols. His disposition for your studies is shown in that moment. “Seems a little reckless for Brakebills to enlist students in theoretical magic…”_

_You bite your lip, shifting through papers, “Mmm, well, they tested us, you know? All of us passed the third-year test…they wouldn’t have had anything to teach us,”_

_Eliot takes a wary inhale from his cigarette and speaks with the smoke held captive in his lungs, “So, what? They hired you instead?”_

_You shrug, “Pretty much. Sometimes I still show up for classes though, just for the hell of it. I mean, I’m smart, but I don’t know everything.”_

_Eliot swallows hard, “You don’t…you don’t try and cast any of this magic, do you?”_

_There’s a beat of silence after his question and his heart stutters in fear._

_“Not alone.”_

_Eliot exhales softly, and leans over to ash his cigarette in the ash tray you bought a couple of months ago: the bottom of a shattered wine bottle. It was enchanted with magic and would display the chemical make-up of the cigarette from the ash in bright neon blue scrawl along the glass. He’d snorted at it, but you and him both knew that he liked it._

_“Kit, right? You and him test this stuff together?” For once there’s no jealousy, just worry._

_You reach out with your mind, letting him in on a memory of the two of you testing this magic, and Eliot is all there, like a parent watching their kid have a first go at a playground. He sees the caution that is employed, the thought, the precaution that goes into it, the recapping of the spell, he sees the fact that two of you have a safe word for if the spell is too much for one of you to handle: Indigo._

_And then he gets a montage of all the times the two of you have backed out of a spell, the razor-sharp readiness of the other to stop the spell, to cut it off on their end. And then the questions to gauge your well-being, and afterwards, it’s always back to the drawing board, no reattempts until you’ve discovered the drawback on the half of the spell that was too much._

_Eliot, as he watches it all, all these months of research and attempts, he’s wired tight and stressed watching you walk into magic that is the worst kind of dangerous._

_But he sees the way you and Kit work together, the close-knit friendship and seamless partnership, and it isn’t lost on him that there is a tenderness in your friendship. Much like the one he has with Margo, and while he hates Kit with every fiber of his being, he can see that Kit wouldn’t let you do anything that could harm you. His concern is genuine and unbendable._

_But…still. Fuck that guy._

_He blinks himself out of your memories and finds you already hard at work with this magic, and he wraps an arm around your stomach. Eliot nudges your ear with his nose, the softest of smiles tugging his lips when you huff at him, and then he kisses behind your jaw, leaves a warm, but hard open-mouthed kiss on your neck that’s complimented with his teeth- he’s linked to you, feels your pulse quicken, makes his own jump-start -and then he stops and drops his chin over your shoulder. He watches you scribble, and rearrange, and flip pages in books._

_“Just…be careful, baby,” he murmurs quietly, his fingers rubbing idly at the skin of your hip, the over-sized tee shirt you’re wearing hiding his hand, and you hum._

_Without losing your focus you turn your head and plant a kiss to his temple._

Eliot’s lip trembles at the memory. He grabs at the bark of a tree and takes a hefty swig of the wine bottle he’s carrying, and then that hefty swig turns into chugging it all. His throat is tight with oncoming tears that he’s been fighting for days but he allows the alcohol in and denies the exit of anything and everything.

_“Okay, but tell me why, exactly, we bought an apartment when we have an entire cottage at our disposal?” Eliot whines as boxes float passed him, over the threshold and into the studio apartment the two of you are now renting out._

_He watches as the contents of boxes float and laze about, and then drift to their new places. He lights a cigarette, and looks at you, you. Always you. You’re what he looks at if he can help it, and if not, he looks for you._

_You’re walking here and there, hands controlling and moving furniture around the apartment all as smaller objects obediently settle where you want them. You’re so good at multi-tasking._

_Eliot observes a wrinkle in your brow, you push the loveseat against the wall, a rug drops in front of it, more objects leave cardboard boxes and he can hear your thoughts branching out in a million different directions, your focus is slipping._

_Things vibrate in mid-air, tremble, stop in their flight as you ponder the best place to put the armchair and coffee table, and Eliot rolls his eyes before stepping in and taking the mental load of all the little knick-knacks._

_That crease in your brow disappears as he goes about managing the aesthetic, the accents of the apartment as you figure out the main picture. He has a hip cocked as he smokes his cigarette and watches you maneuver the living room into something presentable._

_He’s done. Standing- now -behind the couch which was unceremoniously dropped mere inches from his feet. He jumps in alarm, and the ember of his cigarette tumbles free and rolls over the back of his hand, down, onto the backrest of the couch._

_His eyes are comically wide. He looks at you, but you’re busy putting the curtains up, your back to him. He swipes at the red ember innocently, gaze locked on you. It burned a small hole, one he can feel as he rubs fruitlessly at the fabric._

_“There.”_

_You turn around to face him, finally, the curtains fastened, and Eliot smiles at you, a hand gripping the backrest of the couch._

_“To answer your question: privacy. That’s why, and before you complain about not being able to throw killer parties, I’ve made a portal back to Brakebills out of the hallway closet.” Your hands are on your hips as you regard him smugly._

_His eyebrows are high, but he’s smiling around the inhale of his cigarette, and you hear him ‘tell’ you: You’re a goddess._

_Rolling your eyes with a smile of your own, you head towards the kitchen, “Eliot, don’t smoke over the couch. You’ll get ashes on it.”_

_He coughs harshly, smoke expelled from his lungs in a clumsy exhale. His eyes water, “Y-yeah, ok.” He wheezes._

You never did notice that burn mark. He chokes on the wine, it slides down his esophagus into his lungs and he bends over to retch and cough it out. His chest is tight, and his stomach lurches, curls in on itself. He vomits.

He vomits so hard he can’t breathe, his head becomes a throbbing mess and he’s flushed from exertion. The bottle slips from his hand, what’s left of the wine slips from the bottle as it tumbles and rolls, and when it rests in his puddle of vomit all desire for it leaves him.

He throws up on it, and vomit splatters onto the toes of his boots, his boots that he hasn’t bothered shining or lacing up. He’s worn the same pair for a week, regardless of whether or not they match what he’s wearing. In fact, they don’t match, because nothing of what he’s wearing matches.

He’s dressed as if he’s color-blind, and he doesn’t give one solid shit. There’s been talk, gossip. All about him. And what happened to you. He hasn’t cared to listen to any of it.

There haven’t been any parties, he just can’t bring himself to fake a smile like he used to. He doesn’t mix drinks for anyone but himself and even that is rare. He needs something that’s fast, and easy. Pop the cork, unscrew the cap and empty the contents. That’s all he cares about these days.

His hands grip his knees like vices as his stomach rejects its contents violently. He still can’t breathe.

He doesn’t go in your room at the cottage. There isn’t anything in there, but he can remember where things were and his mind will fill in the gaps, and he can’t. He can’t. The same problem arises in his own room. So many memories.

He’s only gone to the apartment once.

He wandered the short hallway, the small kitchen, stood in the middle of the living room, looking but not really seeing. And then he approached the bed, the bed still wearing wrinkled blankets and sheets, and smelling of laundry detergent, your body-wash, and the faint musty scent of sex.

Eliot spent hours that night kneeling at the side of the empty bed, running his fingers over the blankets-

_He mouthed at your neck, tongue coy and sly as he teased and toyed with your pulse there, your hands ran through his hair, tugged and pulled deliciously, making his spine tingle. He loves (loved) the way you pulled his hair in the throes of passion. He’d already fucked you stupid on the couch, and then fucked you into delirium against the wall, and your skin was coated, dripping in sweat._

_He laved at your skin, drinking in your ragged moans and tight breaths almost as greedily as the liquid salt on your flesh._

_He’d fucked you mercilessly. Now, now he was going to make love to you._

-in reverent melancholy as he recalled that night. The last night the two of you had together. He doesn’t have to think hard to hear it: the soft, demure, tender way you’d sigh his name afterward, when he’d have you curled against him. All those soft curves and warm edges slotted into his own body like puzzle pieces, no matter how the two of you shifted you’d always fit together in perfect alignment.

He sobbed himself hoarse that night, and the night after that.

Margo and Quinten found him on the third day, catatonic on the floor beside the bed with red-rimmed eyes and splotchy cheeks. He was on his back, staring listlessly at the ceiling with your tank-top clenched tightly in his fist laying on top his chest.

He hasn’t returned to the apartment since then. He throws up until his stomach is irrefutably empty, and then he straightens himself, pulls a cigarette from his silver case and smokes it right there, leaning against a tree with a puddle of sick at his feet as his hands shake like an addict in relapse.

He supposes he is one.

Why else would he keep reliving memories but for the singular moment of all-encompassing bliss before it all crumbles away and leaves him empty-chested, gutted raw and wondering if anything in life is even worth it anymore?

There’s a plethora of footsteps behind him: Quinten and Margo, probably Alice too. He doesn’t move.

He forces his hands steady, but there won’t be any disguising the flush on his cheeks, or the sweat at his brow, or the pallor of his skin.

It’s silent when they find him and he knows they’re sharing looks of concern behind his back. He can’t bring himself to care. He’s not irritated, nor embarrassed. He doesn’t feel fortunate or blessed by his sweet caring friends. He doesn’t care that they’re here.

“Eliot…” Quinten.

He regards the burning end of his cigarette as he inhales sharply, the acid taste of vomit in his mouth overpowered by the flavor of his cancer stick.

“I’m fine.” He says, tone flat, void of anything.

There’s only more silence in response.

He isn’t fine.

He’s dying. Slowly.

“There’s a ceremony today,” That’s Margo, soft and cautious but resolute. “For her and Kit. Do you remember?”

No, he doesn’t. “Yeah, I do. So?” He flicks ashes into his pile of vomit.

“They’re dedicating an atrium to the both of them-”

“A bunch of fucking trees.” Eliot interrupts brusquely, his disdain obvious. “That fixes everything.”

All three of them hesitate in saying anything more. But finally, Margo does. “Are you-…do you want to go?”

Eliot closes his eyes, his lips pressed flat. “…no.” There’s a soft song of pine needles and brittle leaves crushed underneath shifting feet behind him, and he knows that they’ll leave him be soon.

Eliot opens his eyes. “I…T-shirts. Those shirts I made and ordered…”

They know the ones he’s talking about, and for a second it’s like the old Eliot is back, proposing something rude without an ounce of care. And they’re questioning the soundness of what he wants.

Quinten’s the one that speaks up. “Enough said. We’ll wear them.”

Margo dawns a thin smile, “Even though I don’t have anything that could possibly match.”

Eliot rolls his eyes, but he continues smoking his cigarette and falls back into silence. They all leave at different times, as if they are attending a funeral and saying silent goodbyes to a loved one. Only when he can’t hear footsteps anymore does he look over his shoulder.

He wonders if any of them care about the way you and Kit died. Care about the clandestine nature of it all.

A spell gone wrong, too much power. That’s what’s believed, anyway.

But…Eliot couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing you, niffin or not, he needed to see you. So, he tried reaching out to you, summoning you. But there was nothing. He even brought boxes with him. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to trap you if you appeared but he hoped he could.

Kit. Yeah, he wouldn’t have any trouble binding that asshole. Fuck that guy.

Yes. Yes. He tried summoning Kit too.

But neither one of you showed.

He’s still scratching his head over it, something niggling at him. But he doesn’t linger on it. Everything takes a backseat to the bare fact that you are gone and you’re not coming back and Eliot is losing it. Losing everything.

It’s a shame. He was planning on introducing you to his humiliating family, inviting you into every part of his life. There was no date set for the wedding, but Eliot, on days like today when it is dull and chilly and the sky threatens rain…he thinks of spring. A spring wedding.

He’d invite his close friends, his family, a few people he can trust to entertain a crowd and mix a passable plethora of drinks. He’d somehow, continuously lose Kit’s invitation to the wedding. And even though you’d tell your tattooed best friend that he was invited, Eliot would tersely remind Kit (when you were out of ear-shot) that he was not, in fact, invited.

But now he’d never get to do any of those things.

He can’t help but think that if you were here this shit with the Beast would have been sorted already. You’d have found that fucker where it lived, pulled it out and flayed it alive, and then life would have gone on merrily and you and Eliot could start planning things. Could start the rest of your lives.

God, what he wouldn’t give to feel your fingers run through his hair one more time, or for you to curl up in his lap, your back to the world because nothing was as safe, as inviting and enjoyable as him. Fuck- he’d, he’d do anything to have you sitting on the counter next to the stove while he cooked, your legs swinging merrily, stealing kisses from him whenever he’d meet your eyes.

He doesn’t go to the ceremony. But his friends do, and they garner strange looks, looks that they ignore with the help of grief, and lingering concern for Eliot. Even Kady and Penny show up, Penny all too ready to wear the t-shirt, and Kady does after much insisting that it’s what Eliot wants.

All of them stand clustered together near the front of the mass of students, wearing neon yellow shirts that say: FUCK YOU, KIT. All in bold black letters.

Eliot doesn’t go to the ceremony. He goes to your apartment.

And he crawls into bed, crawls under the blankets that smell like laundry detergent, your bodywash, and the very faint- quickly fading -scent of sex, and he lies awake listening to the world outside move on. He listens to the world turn, and when he’s had enough he turns on his side, throws the blankets over his head and goes to sleep still fully clothed.

When his friends come knocking hours later they can’t get in because he’s enchanted the door with a mobius spell, and he’s blissfully unaware of their presence.

He doesn’t dream. And no one has any idea how grateful he is for that. Even asleep though, his mind reaches for you, reaches into the endless dark, the apathetic white noise of the hole you’ve left in his mind, his heart, his life.

He reaches out. Reaches. Stretches. Farther and farther. Until he’s thin as tissue paper and just as weak, and he hits a wall.

…he hits a wall.

But that’s it.

And it’s enough, for now. For him to believe, however naïvely.

It trickles into his mind with all the tentative nature of a child sneaking into their parent’s bed: the scissors. The enchanted scissors.

But sleep has him in relentless clutches, and he remains unconscious even with a frown marring his features, and fists clenched in sheets.

Just beyond what can be seen and felt and heard, an olive-skinned, blue-eyed, heavily tattooed magician watches Eliot sleep fitfully with a frown of his own.

For shits and giggles, Kit had gone to the ceremony, had waded through the crowd like a ghost and taken a post at the very front, the students and faculty unaware of his presence, save for Dean Fogg who tilted his head in Kit’s direction covertly.

And it was a few seconds later that Kit’s eyes had landed on his friends, and landed on the t-shirts they were all wearing. His expression had flattened immediately. It wasn’t lost on him that Eliot was nowhere in sight.

With arms crossed, Kit sighs at the pitiful state of Eliot now. A snatch of color is barely perceptible in the dark. It peeks out a few inches above where Eliot is fisting the sheets underneath the top blanket, and the color is a bright, obnoxious yellow.

The smallest of smiles twitches across Kit’s lips. “Yeah, I miss you too, buddy.” But he’ll be damned if he ever lets Eliot know that. “Just so you know,” Kit smirks, not at all deterred by Eliot’s lack of response, “I’m making t-shirts of my own.”

The apartment is empty. An undeniable fact, which is why when Eliot wakes up two hours later and his eyes land on the yellow tee shirt twisted in his grip, he silently sheds tears. And then those silent tears are not so silent.


	7. Opaque Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanging by a thread, clinging to a hope, a naive fantasy, Eliot moves on through the minutiae of life, determined to live only for the unlikely chance that you're out there somewhere and he'll stumble upon you. The world turns, even without you, and in order to stay on his feet he has to move too. Sometimes, sometimes, faith is rewarded.

There’s only the ticking of the clock, an old circular thing with a spidery crack along its face, that breaks the silence of the room. It sure as hell won’t be him.

He’s smoking a cigarette, in spite of the severe look he’s being treated to. He figures it’s rude, offensive to her, considering her discipline.

They’ve sat for ten minutes in silence, save for that split second three minutes ago when his stress and anxiety had peaked, egged on by the sound of the clock, and he’d telekinetically cracked the face of the clock.

Fucking oops.

He’s somewhat calmer now that he’s smoking.

“I’m fine,” Eliot says curtly, one leg crossed over the other as he regards his cigarette with faux pas interest. “Just so you know.”

Professor Lipson smiles sardonically. “You drank yourself into a coma.”

His lips twitch, “Go big or go home.” His lips close around the filter of his cigarette.

“How are your studies?”

“Oh, they’re fine, thanks for asking. Pain in the ass, like always.” Eliot winks, a practiced gesture.

Quiet again. A kind of quiet that Eliot loathes. It gives him room to think, it shows him just how much room he has. His thoughts echo inside his own head, there’s no response. It’s just him. All him. Which doesn’t make any sense, because the thread is still active.

If you’re dead, if you’re really dead…he should be able to move on. Should be able to drown himself in alcohol, and drugs and pick up someone and fall into a different bed for the night.

But he can’t. The words wouldn’t come, they stopped at his teeth with a weight he could feel, like there was a ball of ice pressing against the roof of his mouth and the backs of his teeth and it was painful. And then there was the searing pain in both of his wrists, like scalding hot wire was digging into the tender flesh.

The scissors didn’t lie. They can’t.

You’re still out there somewhere and he can’t find you, he can’t reach you. He can’t even feel you.

His fingertips sting and he blinks down at his hand. His cigarette has burned down to the filter. He puts it back in his case without a word, without looking at Lipson.

Just last week he was in London, roaming the haunted halls of the author who wrote about Fillory. And holy flying fuck- the place was actually real? Great. Bonus: The Beast was from Fillory. Fucking awesome.

But whatever. The place is literally magic, everything. Eliot thinks if there’s anyway of finding you, of knowing if you’re still alive…he’ll find it in Fillory. There has to be something.

He’s fully aware that this shit with the Beast is important, that it’s out there to kill them all, but…

Well, shit, you’re gone and that’s all he cares about. Hindsight, drinking himself into a coma was kind of counter-productive, but sue him. He was having a rough day. The others have already made head-way in Fillory, and after the fuck-cluster of the Neitherlands, the condition he was in…

His friends had wisely kept him out of the game. But he was doing better. Or he would be doing better.

He had spent this morning brewing a potent detox potion. It’d probably land him on his ass, and he’d be in agony for hours, he’ll probably want to die. But it’s faster, and he’ll be completely clean, and then he can enter Fillory.

“Eliot.”

He clears his throat and raises his eyes from the carpet. Lipson is looking at him expectantly. “What?”

Her eyebrows wrinkle. “Our session is over.”

It is? He glances up at the clock and the hour hand has moved a full number. He stands with relief blooming in his veins. “Thanks, doc. Later.”

Behind him, past the veil, Kit trails after, hands in his pockets.

“Don’t do this, man. It’s a bad idea,” Eliot can’t hear him, but it doesn’t stop Kit from talking to his back. “You’re going to be in pain like you’ve never experienced. And you won’t be able to lock it down,” his black eyebrows anchor down in frustration.

“She’ll feel it. Feel what you feel.” He says, a low growl. Eliot continues walking, and Kit bites his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. “Damn. Damn you. Can’t you just wait, you asshole?”

Eliot pulls another cigarette from his case, and tosses his head, tendrils of his curly hair flopping into his eyes. He stops suddenly on the middle of a path and turns, his hazel eyes hardened as he stares out across the grounds.

Kit stands just behind him, his head cocked.

“Fucking trees. A bunch of fucking trees,” Eliot mutters bitterly, and Kit pops an eyebrow.

“The atrium? Didn’t know the trees could fuck. I don’t know, I thought it was lame before but now…an atrium full of trees that can fuck…”

“Should’ve planted a garden for her. Something beautiful, something…better,” Eliot glares at the trees in question, his jaw stone-stiff. “Should’ve dedicated a dumpster to that asshole…” That’s under his breath.

Kit scowls at the back of Eliot’s head. “You’re an asshole.” He says petulantly. “Here I am, keeping an eye on you, and all you do is shit-talk me.”

Eliot closes his eyes. “What the fuck happened? I thought- why didn’t you look out for her, you prick?”

Kit rubs at his jaw. “I did,” He sighs. “I am. She’s fine. We’re fine, E. We’re fine.”

The cigarette finds its way to his lips, sure as the sun rises in the east, and he inhales, sure as the sun sets in the west. Kit takes a step closer, toes the line of his influence, inches just a little too close. He could end this whole charade, reveal himself. But he doesn’t.

A gust of wind blows a bundle of leaves towards the two of them, and Eliot turns his head away from the wind, turns his back on the atrium. And his eyes widen.

The leaves have hit something, they are stuck in mid-air, pressed against something in the middle of the sidewalk just a few feet from Eliot. Kit should be alarmed. But he isn’t.

Eliot’s throat has gone dry. “Is that you, fuck-wad?”

Kit smirks.

He takes a step back and turns his body and the leaves fly on by. Eliot deflates, and runs a hand through his hair.

The leaves come back, they aren’t carried by the wind. Eliot can feel the magic in the air. He watches in rapture as the leaves arrange themselves in mid-air right in front of his face.

_Fuck you, Kit. Yellow, black_

They spell out, and Eliot’s cigarette slips from his fingers. The t-shirts, he realizes. The words, the colors. He gasps breathlessly.

_Hey, Eliot_

He laughs wetly, puts a hand over his mouth and watches them move again.

_You okay?_

“Fuck you, Kit.” Eliot responds flatly, no venom to be noted. He frowns, “Real nice of you to show up like you did for that summoning.”

There’s a pause in communication and Eliot continues to stare at the question in front of him with bated breath. But then a flurry of leaves fly past his shoulder and join the ones in front of him in a mad scramble of motion.

_Missed you too_ A heart appears after, the leaves flipping to their lighter undersides and then to their darker tops so fast it appears like a beat.

A heartbeat. Cute.

Eliot shakes his head, his lips pressed thin. He blinks rapidly against the sting in his eyelids, “Just-…tell me…are you dead?” He licks his lips, looks down at his boots, his burned out cigarette a few inches away, and when he lifts his gaze again the same message still blinks at him.

More than half of the leaves fall to the ground in a sad flutter of abandonment.

But another message appears, and Eliot can do nothing to stop the watering of his eyes.

_No_

“What do I-? How do I…IS she..?” He can’t form a sentence, and it seems neither can Kit because silence stretches, and stretches, and Eliot fears the worst despite what he feels in his soul. “Fuckin’ say something!” he yells, thankful that no one is walking around campus to see him shouting at the wind.

_Dick don’t yell at me_

Eliot points, yeah, he fucking points at a sentence made of floating leaves and no, he doesn’t question his sanity, “I’ll yell at you if I want, you piece of shit.”

_I saw the t-shirts…mean._

Eliot’s lips twitch ever so slightly, and then they fall limply when Kit says something else.

_I saw you. Apartment. Sorry._

“Shut the fuck up.” He snaps, not embarrassed, but irritated and rubbed raw with grief.

_See you again. Promise._

Eliot swallows hard, his hands clenching into fists at his side. He takes a step forward, “No, don’t go.”

_Slow detox. Please. Careful. Promise me._

Eliot is petty in this moment, looking for leverage, looking for a way to keep Kit around for a moment more, get him to say something else. And- “Who the hell are you to ask anything of me?”

_…Friend._

Eliot snorts and rolls his eyes. “We are not friends.”

_Okie dokie then_

Eliot rubs at his eyes, rubs the sting and dryness and the fatigue, and just stops himself from stomping his foot in irritation, desperation.

_Slow detox, E. Fast will hurt her_

Eliot’s breathing stops, his heart falls into the bottomless pit of his stomach. Everything comes to a standstill with those words in front of him. He can scarcely believe.

“Where is she?! Is she okay? Holy shit- Holy, shit.” He slams to his knees, staring up at those leaves in awed reverence. His vision is blurry.

_Fillory. We’ll catch up._

Eliot stares. Stares with tears running down his face, and his gaze is pinned to the air even as the leaves drop and flutter uselessly around him. And then he crumbles to his side and sobs in relief, sobs that wrack his body and steal his breath, and he’s rolling onto his back crying like a child waiting to be consoled.

His hands are in his hair, fingers gripping his knotted curls viciously. He laughs madly, tears still slipping from his eyes, and he’s such a pitiful sight. 6’ 2’’ inches of grown man laying the middle of a sidewalk, tweed coat open and his scarf spilling across the concrete haphazardly.

He’s again thankful that the campus grounds are empty because it takes him quite some time to gather himself. And when he does, he grabs a leaf from the ground and puts it safely inside his pocket. He goes back to the cottage, finds his detox potion, and throws it against the brick outside.

He’s lucid and serious, and determined when he walks back in and his hands- his hands that haven’t stopped shaking since you disappeared -are still and calm at his sides.

They’re all in there, moping on the couches and when he walks into the middle of all them they look in alarm and curiosity. They haven’t seen him in days.

“Fillory,” He says, his tone firm and strong and they all sit a little straighter. “Let’s fucking go.”

They all share looks. Because some shit’s happened, right? They need access to Fillory’s castle, the library there, but, uh…none of them are royal blood. Funny shit, huh?

“Eliot,” Margo stares him, a gleam in her eye that’s worry mixed with pensiveness. “What’s going on?”

“Let me ask you something,” He says, and folds his arms over his chest. “Is there alcohol in Fillory?”

Quinten’s eyebrows scrunch, “I mean, yeah.”

 “Anything like this?” Eliot gestures widely, to the whole of the cottage.

Margo answers, her tone skeptical, but it sounds just a little hopeful. “No.”

Eliot nods, “Drugs?”

Quinten shrugs and scratches at his jaw, “Well, the air is 0.02 percent opium…”

“Okay, but no heroin, no cocaine…” Well, it’ll be a slow detox. Fuck if it won’t still suck though. Cold turkey anything is a bitch. “Let’s fucking go. I have no willpower to resist any of this here.”

Margo rolls her eyes, “If that’s what this is about, why don’t you just go to rehab?”

“Because I’m not a washed-up celebrity. And I have an essay due in a couple days and haven’t done shit for it,” He didn’t say his motives were admirable. He adopts a sarcastic smile, “And come on, I’ve missed you guys.”

Quinten crumbles like a house of cards and Margo is close behind. Soon, they all have bags packed, some of them for the second time. Eliot, upon setting foot in Fillory is awestruck and hardly knows which direction to look first.

But just as he always does when he goes anywhere new, he reaches for you. Reaches as far as he can, and he’s only ever hit that wall when he’s been between that veil of awake and unconscious but here…here he slams into it full force.

He can’t deny it.

You’re out there.

He just needs to break through.

“Oh, by the way, we have to take you to this weapon maker who has a knife that can only draw the blood of the true king. He’s going to have to cut you.”

Eliot blinks a few times. “Is that opium talking, or did you really say what I heard you say?”

Margo rolls her eyes, “Some middle-aged guy is going to cut you and you’re going to like it.”

Eliot sighs. “Kinky.” This is already turning out to be so much fun. He can’t contain himself. Oh wait. Yes he can.

 

“Your boy is a mess.”

You don’t look up. You stare out a port window, the kind that belong on boats and not on white stone towers like the one you’re situated in now. Waves beat upon rocky, sharp cliffs outside, the stone is coal black and mingled with grey and brown. The ocean water is foam-white as it rams against the cliffs in a never-ending barrage of nature and unbiased force.

The horizon stretches endlessly, the sky a muddy mix of blue, salmon pink, pastel yellow and pale purple. All the colors hang in the balance, suspended between the dark blue of the ocean, and the two suns situated along the skyline. One is half sunk and the other offers just a few more hours of daylight.

A low electrical hum permeates the air and amiable silence between you and Kit. He doesn’t desire a response. He’s moved on, shuffled his tired feet over to the wide desk in the middle of the room. It’s stacked high with papers and books that reportedly don’t exist.

“How long has it been there?” You ask, and fiddle with your bracelet, one stamped with rare crystals and jewels that channel and amplify magical ability…as well as other things.

Kit shrugs, his palms braced on two miraculously clear spots on the table, he leans his weight into them. “Couple of months. Everyone thinks we’re dead, of course.”

You close your eyes, and turn to rest your weight on the bookshelves nailed into the wall. They’re all crammed full of arcane magic, things that haven’t been seen or touched or gossiped about in gods know how long. They still hold a thick layer of dust.

“He missed me.” Kit sounds like he’s gloating. He’s probably gloating.

The ceiling shifts. The metal plates it consists of go dead momentarily before lighting up again, and this time they display the branches of a tree from below, the shine shining through all the leaves, casting marvelous shadows upon other leaves and branches themselves. Bugs flit about, birds land here and there for a rest and then move on.

It looks so real. It might be.

“They made it to Fillory, you know?” He says it conversationally, lightly. But there’s a thin vein of unease wrapped around every word and you hear it clear as day.

“Of course they did,” you remark coolly, and fold your arms over your chest, necklaces jingling with the motion. “They’re all still alive?”

Kit nods, his piercing blue eyes roving the desk restlessly. “Far as I know. Hey, you haven’t opened up to him at all, have you?”

You sigh and glance off to the far side of the room where an apparatus rests on a stand of sliced quartz. Rings of perforated metal orbit and rotate around it, their ridges shining, sparking with the occasional release of magic. Symbols are etched into the metal, symbols unfamiliar to most, but to you and Kit they’re becoming commonplace. The symbols in this case helped to constrict, to control the magic residing inside the apparatus on the stand.

You’ve never seen what’s inside the container. It’s a material, you think, but not solid, or at least not always. Some days it sits on the quartz as heavy as 2-ton wrecking ball and other days it floats so lightly you think it might fly away. The color is typically black, but a black that is darker than anything you’ve ever laid eyes on back home, and oddly enough light emanates from it in different colors all while it maintains its sinister coloration. And the light that leaves it is not seen within close capacity, it occurs a good three feet away from the apparatus, like a halo.

You’ve found nothing on this device whatsoever, so you and Kit have decided to give it a wide berth.

Speaking of Kit, he’s waiting on a response from you.

“No. But I’ve felt him on the border, the edge of the wall I’ve put up, he’s there for a second and then he’s gone.”

Kit frowns placidly. “Well, you locked him up tight. It probably takes a lot out of him just to reach the wall.”

Idly, you fiddle with the ring on your third finger, and drag your gaze along the wall opposite. Bookshelves all the way down, papers sticking out between books, empty jars on shelves, rocks and minerals dotting them here and there, dried out herbs of unknown origin.

“Yeah…” Sometimes, when he reaches that wall, you can catch whispers from him. Like his voice is carried on the wind, lacking volume but not tone, and you can always hear the desperation, the turmoil, the heartache in his voice when his words come to you.

_Y/N…_

_Where are you..?_

_I’ll find you…_

_Please…_

He variates in order, but he leaves one thing for last. And it kills you, but gives you so much hope, gives you determination, and it steels you.

_I love you._

That is never said like a plea. He doesn’t use it to beg. That is always a declaration, a firm proclamation, a promise.

Kit snorts suddenly from his spot at the desk, and when you blink your gaze over to him you find him sitting on the desk with arms crossed over his chest. There’s a question on your face and he answers it before you ask.

“Sometimes I find it really hard to believe he was gay. The guy’s entire world is centered around you, which I get because of the whole ‘soulmates’ thing, but just…” he breaks off to chuckle airily and you find your lips twitching against their accord.

“This will be good for him. The time apart. He needs an identity outside of me.”

Kit falls silent at your words, though his expression holds a moment. But the second you look away from him it slides away into fearful skepticism. Kit has lied to you about how well Eliot is holding up without you. If he told you that Eliot was in a coma last week, or that he was starving himself two weeks (without meaning to, the lack of sleep had made the guy feeble-minded) ago, or that he taken up the needle again…

Fucking hell the two of you would be out of here in a heartbeat and that wouldn’t be good for anyone. You two needed to be here. To scour these pages and books for new magic, new magic that was so old it would blow everything out of the water. The things the two of you have found already, just with crystals and gems that you’ve added to bracelets and belts…fuck, the two of you can handle three-people spells all on your own.

You need this strange place and all of its forgotten knowledge.

Your friends have their Beast of Fillory. And you two have one of your own. Something much worse. And if you can’t take on the Beast you have no chance of taking on your own monster.

Kit sighs through his nose, and darts his cerulean gaze towards the door directly across from you. The door that leads into the seemingly endless hallway of cold white marble, a stretch of silence and vague reflections in milky stone broken only by doors flanking both sides. They are pitch black, made of some unidentifiable wood and are always warm to the touch.

Not all of them open. You and Kit have been able to open a handful, and that’s after extensive probing in the library and failed magical attempts to force them wide. He knows one of the doors leads to the staircase that winds up, up, and up into the cloud bank. It irks him that the two of you are stuck on the bottom floor. He takes offense to his magical aptitude.

“Hey,” he says, unfolding his arms, “Let’s get some air, see if we can’t work out that kink in the pyromancy spell..?”

You smile faintly, visions dancing before your eyes of the nearby Salt Flats -as you can Kit have come to call them. The terrain is smooth rock of the purest white, speckled with smallest flecks of black that sparkle in the sunlight. The rocks climb towards the horizon, reaching far into the sky like wanting fingers. And they hold secrets, hidden alcoves at their bases that are as deep and dark as secrets can be and the damp air is permeated by the scent of saltwater, but also lavender and something sickly sweet.

“Maybe just the walk?” You propose lightly, wanting nothing more than a day of leisure in spite of the severity of your work here. Kit agrees silently, a corner of his mouth quirking up at the prospect of being lazy.

The two of you had stumbled upon the Flats not long after arriving at the tower, you were both eager to delve into the vast geography stretching out around the building.

The Salt Flats are calming, soothing. They isolate noise from the surrounding area, and seem to capture sunlight and warm, holding both soothingly captive. The stones are humming warm with magic, and so sleek that any touch slides away, as if they were wet soap.

When the two of you arrive, your feet aching at the hour’s walk, you heave a sigh of relief. Pebbles disappear under your feet, grass becomes sparse, insects go no further than the hulking entrance of two jagged boulders thrusting up from the ground in sharp angles and concise points. They lean away from each other, creating a V that is easy to see from afar, but inside the narrow walk-way it is difficult to discern. The walls are so steep they appear to simply stretch straight up.

Kit leads the way, his olive skin near glowing with perspiration and the reflection of sunlight off the walls. His thick silky midnight locks are tussled, swayed, by a light breeze. His maroon beanie flops around haphazardly from the loose anchor of its resting place in his back pocket.

The two of you are a quiet jingle and jangle of jewelry, the sounds of your bracelets, necklaces, and baubles secured to your belt loops twinkle merrily and it brings a soft smile to your lips.

The jaggedness of The Flats begins to slowly bleed away, the sharpness ebbing into smooth, graceful arcs of stone, oval tunnels and abstract caverns burrowing deep into the earth, or spiking up towards the skyline. Thin, stringy cords of marble intertwine overhead in dizzying twists and playful curves and the floor underneath is even taken to something more lively: rippling like gentle waves, or sheets billowed by wind.

All this stone, bent and flexile, frozen in a dance of lustrous beauty, glowing in sunlight and magic.

Kit runs his fingers along the marble, his skin a sharp contrast to the bone-white of the wall. The ground under your feet has turned to swirls and thick tendrils of marble that snake gently towards the walls like roots of a tree, but he is sure-footed, enough so that he looks over his shoulder at you as he continues walking. His bright blue eyes are even brighter here,

“Do you think, after we do what we have to, we could bring them here? To see this?” His voice is soft, hopeful but cautious.

Kit ducks underneath a low arch of white stone and stops on the other side of it. He rests his forearms atop the humming rock and regards you openly. “I think they’d like it. Some of them, anyway…”

You tuck your hands into your pockets and take a deep breath of the sweet air, and tilt your head back to rove your gaze along the intricate weaving of speckled marble above you. “Quinten- he’d never want to leave if we brought him.”

Kit smiles wanly. “Neither would Alice. Everything-structured-and-just-so-Alice…I think she’d figure out how to let go here.”

Let go.

He couldn’t have put it better. This place is so calming, so isolated, it has a captured beauty, something covetous and untouched and it’s wild, so free, which is a paradox because it’s all stone. A labyrinth of winding snake-like coils of rock…and it all appears to be so careless.

God. If you brought Eliot here-

Eliot. With his curly tendrils of hair the color of dark chocolate and his pale skin that would appear tanner if only his hair were a lighter color. His long limbs that stem pleasingly from the trunk of his body like branches, and how they move with calculated grace and smooth motions. Every line of his body like cursive when he’s playful, like silk cords winding and wrapping so furtively with hidden agenda when he wants something from you- those are his arms in the early morning when sunlight first spills over the horizon like molten gold. Or in the late evening when the fading streaks of orange from the sun slide and disappear into the gloom of the approaching night, his arms are like velvet then: luxurious and warm, and they stroke so softly, wind so sensuously the mere thought brings a shiver to your spine.

You jolt suddenly when Kit places a hand on the side of your face. You blink rapidly, your vision blurry.

You’d flush in embarrassment if your heart wasn’t aching so painfully.

His thumb swipes at your cheek carefully. “If we brought El he’d have a portal opened to Brakebills- ” He clears his throat, “God, there’d be booze, and cocaine, and party streamers, he’d string a fucking strobe light from every arch…” You both chuckle wetly, and he reaches underneath the arch to tug at your arm.

You lean into Kit silently, and his arms eclipse you without hesitation. He too goes quiet as he thinks of his friends, and envisions reunions, and happy goings, he thinks of the laughs without reason, and he longs for the pointless bickering, the tactless insults, of the teasing.

Kit rests his cheek on top of your head and sighs through his nose. “And this was supposed to be a feel-good walk.” He mumbles petulantly, his eyes heavy-lidded.

“Well, you ruined it.” You grumble into his chest, and wipe at your damp eyes with the arm squished between you.

He hums. “So, I did. Now, watch me fix it.” With that he detaches himself almost completely from you: he slings an arm around your shoulders and starts onward, a smile stretching his lips wide.

You sniffle. “Fix as in ‘fix’? Or fix as in ‘make worse’?”

He rolls his eyes. “Haha, you’re so fucking smart.” He jostles you, and tightens the angle of his elbow, almost choking you.

“Well, one of us has to be.” You retort, and shove his side, attempting to loosen the arm around your neck. He’s fucking tall, and he’s gotten stockier since the two of you had made this strange land your temporary home. His arm doesn’t budge.

“Alright then, genius.” Kit smirks down at you, your head practically cocked sideways to be able to look at him. The glare you shoot him makes a snort break out of his chest. Without preamble, he lets go of you and you stumble sideways.

You rub at your neck, still scowling, and his smirk grows. You’re immediately suspicious. “What?”

He says nothing, just ducks his head innocently, blinks slowly at you…plants a hand on your sternum and forcefully shoves you backwards.

Your arms flail wildly as you search for something to grab onto, your feet slip, slide, you fall backwards and the world slopes up as you go down. You continue sliding down, marble closing around you and wind rushes past you, hair whipping about your face.

“Y-you aaaahhshooole!” You scream at him as you barrel down backwards into the depths of a flawless tunnel, and Kit’s laughter barely reaches you from his place at top.

You twist your head on your neck and try to see where your headed but there’s no light, only more winding tunnel, and no outlet and you slap a hand against the wall, pushing magic into your palm to give friction. With effort, you manage to spin yourself around and squint into the rushing wind, into the featureless tunnel that hurries you god knows where.

You hear Kit yelling behind you, some way back. He’s whooping and hollering, and you roll your eyes so hard it disorients you in the darkened space of this makeshift amusement ride.

It’s silent inside aside from the air hissing passed your ears and your clothes whipping in the wind. And then suddenly it’s bright again, so bright you have to close your eyes. And then you’re falling again, nothing underneath you this time and your stomach drops violently. You at least crack your eyes open to see how you die.

But water closes around you, welcomes you happily and swarms inside your ears and mouth because you gasped in surprise when you hit.

You claw for the surface, push and propel yourself up and when you break the surface, you splutter and cough, your heart racing. Tossing hair out of your face, you look up just in time to see Kit falling, his arms spread wide, legs locked straight, eyes pinned on you.

He’s fucking smiling.

He splashes into the water, spraying you, drowning you again. And when he bursts from under the water just a few feet away, water slaps you in the face once more.

And it’s only then, once you realize that you’re not dead, that you aren’t in danger of dying that you take in your surroundings. Take in the water.

Mist rises from the surfaces in lazy tendrils, spirals languidly from the ripples and tiny waves, as if not at all disturbed by the rowdiness of the unexpected swimmers. And the water…the water is mesmerizing. Not a blue, not crystal clear, but a pulsating, breathing, rose pink. And so thick, the surface non-reflective, you get lost in the color, the richness of it.

Around you, the walls slope up, veins of black mineral coiling abstractly in the white walls. Flecks of something gold shine brilliantly in the sunlight. Great bands ridged stone bend over the concave shape of the pool you’re in, casting shade on the walls on the vibrant water.

Kit is on his back, floating peacefully in the oddly colored water. His inky hair fans out around him in layers, curling, and vining around sections of itself with the ebbing of the waves.

Water droplets cascade down from the arches above, and splatter atop your head.

“See?” Kit says, one eye open to watch your expression of wonder deepen layer by layer. “I fixed it.”

You slap the water harshly, hitting his smug profile with a whip of rosy water. “Fuck you.”

-

 

Eliot’s gaze is flat even as the blade slices open his palm. His fingers snap shut around the wound reflexively. “Makes some instinctual sense, I guess…” He wraps a handkerchief around his hand as his friends regard him in open wonder.

“Um…” For such a short syllable, Quinten’s managed to work pounds of anxiety into it, his gaze ticking between Eliot, Alice, and Margo in worry.

The smith is just as surprised, but then that surprise vaults straight into relief, to jubilation. “And now you will marry my daughter!”

Silence.

Silence that has never been heard is what follows, it bleeds for a full minute. The smith begins to look uncomfortable, his expression wobbling.

“No.” Eliot says succinctly. His wrist throbs as if to say, _Again, for the people in the back._ Eliot snaps his gaze to his friends, hoping for an explanation, but he finds none in their uneasy expressions. “What. In the _ever loving…fuck_ is going on?”

“Um- uh..whuh. It’s uhm…” Quinten struggles for words, struggles even more when Eliot straps him with a harsh look. “We- uh, Julia and I made a deal with a weapon smith way back in the day and uh…”

Eliot’s eyes slide shut. Even as tired as he is, physically, he can work out the mystery with the tiniest clues he’s been given.

“No.” Eliot says again, and this time he turns on his heel and marches off in an unclear direction, his teeth grinding.

A chorus of disgruntled noises follows him, in close combination with harried footsteps. Not even the opium laced air is enough to take the edge off his irritation.

“Wait!”

Eliot sighs, but stops beyond the fringe of the forest, just where the undergrowth begins to get out of control, where the trees thicken, and bugs speak and dead leaves and pine needles lay like carpet upon the forest floor.

The air is ripe with the scent of dirt and greenery, and the occasional wisp of something sweet accents the overwhelming richness of the tang of earth.

Quinten scrambles in front of Eliot, his palms out in front of him in passive manner. “Look, we need in the castle’s library which is only open to the High King of Fillory. We need the knowledge in there, Eliot.”

Margo appears to his left. “He’s right. In case you forgot, we’re still fucked four ways from Sunday.”

The Beast. Yeah, he hasn’t forgotten.

He rubs at his eyelids, the grit there, the heat in them, it’s almost unbearable. “I can’t.”

Margo’s lips purse flatly. “El…we know you loved her, but…she’s gone.”

It makes him snap. “She’s not!” it’s sharp enough, uncharacteristic enough that it makes everyone jump, even himself, just a little. He rakes all of his hair back, tucks unruly strands around the shells of his ears and sighs, his friends watching him like he’s gone crazy.

“I can’t marry that girl, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” Eliot swallows the lump in his throat. “The Thread is still alive, it’s active, and it won’t let me move on.” His voice breaks on the last word, his Adam’s apple bobbing sadly. He looks away into the forest.

Margo steps forward, her hand hovers a moment in the space between them before she grabs his wrist. “Where is she?” She asks softly, her big brown eyes sympathetic, appearing larger with hope.

Eliot meets her eyes slowly. “I don’t know…I don’t know.”

Alice and Quinten share looks of…disbelief? Surprise? Heartbreak? Who the hell knows?

“Okay. Uh- we still have a problem, though.” Quinten realizes, peering past Eliot’s shoulder at the farmer, and his daughter.

Eliot gives him a blank look. “A problem you made. So go fix it.”

Quinten wrings his hands, adjusts his satchel strap restlessly.

Eliot shrugs. “I _literally_ can’t marry her-”

“Yeah, no, I know. I know…” Quinten groans, rubs at his forehead and begins pacing back and forth while he thinks.

“What if we give her all the privileges of being married to royalty without actually being married to royalty?” Alice proposes, her arms crossed over her chest, Quinten stops pacing to look at her.

Eliot doesn’t care, he’s smoking a cigarette, counting the rest in his case, measuring out his day based on that.

“She gets to live in the palace, has stature, the respect of royalty…”

Eliot snorts. “Well, she’s gonna have to settle for that, because I’m only getting married to one other person.”

“Um- Okay! Yeah, yeah, okay.” Quinten’s nodding, pointing at Alice, and then he shoots past everyone. He gets halfway back to the farmer before he seems to realize that no one is following him and he stops to wave his arms.

Both women roll their eyes at his helplessness.

Eliot stays behind. “Fucking High King.” He mutters bitterly. He glares out at the forest. Glares at a bunch of fucking trees. He sighs heavily. “You better catch up soon, fuck-wad.” He stomps his cigarette out and joins his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like to apologize to everyone waiting on other things from me, you've all been so patient in putting up with my bullshit. For those of you actually following this story, special love goes out to you! I'd also like to point out again that this is hardly following the canon plot, and the timeline, so if things seem off it's because they are, and they're meant to be slightly askew. <3 <3 <3


	8. Preserved In Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's wrung out and strung out and he's never felt so alone, so irate at his helplessness and confusion. Maybe it's that self-destructive streak he's got going, but he won't quit until he breaks through that wall or the wall breaks him. What a surprise then that he ends up successful. Once again, though, he's reminded that good things never last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus, guys, I don't even know what to say. I'm fully aware that this story isn't popular, it barely gets any recognition compared to the other stories on my dashboard- but I can't help myself. I literally can't stop writing this story, it's taken my focus completely hostage. I think- this might be the most taboo thing I've ever typed -I'm actually enjoying writing this story. So, until I hate it...We'll be seeing more updates on this garbage fire! Yay.

Smoke billows in careless tendrils from the ebbing flames of the campsite fire, and snores fluctuate between the lumps on the ground. Everyone is fast asleep under blankets, bags and balled up clothes serving as pillows.

Eliot is wide awake for the fourth night in a row, standing afar from the group, bags weighing heavy under his eyes, his ribcage only held steady by the iron-tight grip of his arms around his middle. He can’t sleep. He’s too jittery, he passed the three-day hump of withdrawal, and now he’s on a fast decline.

His collar is too tight, damp with sweat, and the muscles in his thighs won’t stop quaking, and his mind is racing, running in pointless circles. He squats down, the glow of the fire disappearing beyond the high wall of grass and weeds he’s ducked himself down in.

Bugs titter and buzz, crickets chirp, and nighttime fowl croon softly across the distance of the lake they’re camped out beside. He slides his trembling hands through his hair, the usually unruly strands now held at standstill under the assault of perspiration and incessant appendages.

His fingers come away slick. Eliot tugs his ascot off his neck, mops at his brow, and then drops the fabric into the grass without a care.

His elbows land on his knees, and he slaps his hands over his ears, blocking out the noise of nature and isolating himself instead to the sound of his own heartbeat. He focuses on drawing breath evenly, at soft, measured intervals.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. Hold for three seconds, exhale for three seconds. Rinse and repeat.

Eliot isn’t honestly convinced that taking that detox potion would’ve hurt you. He hasn’t _felt_ any semblance of you since you’ve been gone.

But, if he can hurt you, and nothing you do can hurt him from where you are…and Kit is with you, watching out for you…

Eliot digs his molars into the sensitive flesh of his cheek, and glares through mere slits of his eyes at the ground.

Then…you’re not in danger. You’re safe. You’re separated from him. But he isn’t separated from you.

You left. You cut him off.

A bead of sweat rolls down his jaw, and he blinks rapidly.

He stretches his mind, extends his reach, flitters past the subconscious weight of his friends sleeping yards away, past all the wildlife and humming thoughts of mystical beings, he flies right passed all of it and slams into that invisible wall so hard it forces the breath out of him.

It’s dark in his mind’s eye, encumbering, and his struggle echoes inside his own head. His ‘palms’ are cold against the wall in his mind, and maybe it’s just the fever of his detox, or his denial, but he’s invigorated, perhaps even infuriated. He flings himself at his constraints heedlessly, over and over, beating his fists, bloodying his knuckles, bruising his shoulders.

Eliot’s eyes are clenched shut, his teeth grit together painfully as he tries and tries.

And something happens. Something that makes bile rise in the back of his throat; the wall pushes back.

It bends in towards him, closes tight like a net until he can’t draw breath in or out. It shoves him backwards and it’s a blow that drains him magically. He can feel the energy leave his body in waves.

His hands are shaking in violent tremors, even grasping his head as tight as they are means nothing. Sweat is falling from his chin in endless intervals, the back his of neck is shimmering with strain.

Eliot is bound and determined.

It’s strange, metaphysical: fighting inside his own mind. But that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s almost like a memory block, almost. Except that he knows it’s there, he’s _aware_ and he’s a dog with a bone because of it.

It’s kind of transcendent. He can feel inside his own head another version of himself, hands, legs, arms, eyes and mouth, etc. All while his physical body is hunkered down on its haunches, shaking like a leaf.

This head-version of himself is all put together, like he remembers himself being before you came along. All clothes and accessories just-so, his expression schooled and neutral, but just on the fence of being playful and sarcastically flirty.

Head-Eliot is regal and stiff spined, all sharp edges and fine lines and irrefutable challenge. Another push at the wall, another inch back in response. A slight curl of the lip, barely perceivable, the rise in irritation coaxes something from him, makes his fingertips tingle, and this time when his hands touch the wall of darkness, the darkness shivers, recoils hastily.

-

 

You’re frozen. Literally stuck, wide-eyed and shocked, and quaking with fear.

You can feel Eliot at the edge of his own mind, feel him pounding and beating and clawing at that wall with every iota of his being. You can feel the wall retreating and it makes your skin lose all semblance of color.

Even underneath the covers of your blanket your blood is at a stand-still. Your knuckles are bone white, clutching your blanket for dear life.

There’s a pressure behind your forehead, accompanied by a pang of hurt in your ribcage and then-

_Close. Close. So close. Again. Y/N._

It forces you to suck in a startled breath, and the wall around Eliot’s mind quavers precariously.

Suddenly, inexplicably, you can see him. See him huddled into a ball in the tall weeds off the bank of some lake during the middle of the night, can see all his muscles trembling like disturbed water, can see the sweat drip off every sharp angle he has.

You can feel the grass underneath your bare feet, feel the cool wind on your face, and you can only stare in petrified fear, too worried to say or do anything, not knowing if you have any influence or not.

A harsh gasp from between Eliot’s gritted teeth is all the warning you get before you feel it, and in the next moment your lungs constrict to painful proportions. He isn’t unravelling the wall as much as he is pulling it apart in ravenous shreds.

In all honesty, you didn’t think he’d be able to puzzle it out. It was too complex for him to un-work, to reverse carefully. But you also didn’t think he’d be strong enough to just _tear it apart_ like a carnivorous animal digging teeth and claws into a meaty carcass.

You never thought-

A crack appears in the wall, and you get a snippet of Eliot: _Yeah. Maybe I’m not the smartest. But I hate to fucking lose._

-that you’d have to fight him back.

It isn’t easy to sew up that fissure, mostly because he can feel you do it, and you’d go so far as to say it enrages him. It’s desperate and carnal and so unlike him that you fumble in your spellcasting and he’s slipping right through that abysmal crack, homing in on you like he’s a bloodhound that’s caught scent of wounded prey.

You retreat, feint, alter your course, and do something risky: you glide inside the wall. _Inside_ his mind and you patch it up as deftly as you can, feeling him from every direction.

But he’s at a distance, quiet, pensive even as the threads of the wall fall back into place under your fingers.

Your eyes shift in the darkness of his confines, shoulders hackling as you prepare to make your escape, the faintest of light shining through the tear. Light from…your conscience- fuck, don’t even think about that, it’ll turn your head into a fucking pretzel.

Just another loop, another twist and swoop of the spell-

“Not a chance.” Hands snap around your wrists from behind, and you feel the copy of his conscience press against you, back to chest and all warmth. “Not a- _fucking…_ chance.” His voice is a rasp, coal-like: black and flaky, but holding heat, and you shiver.

You say nothing, too shocked, too terrified to find words. You really need to stop-

“Underestimating me.” Eliot says, a rumble that makes your spine go weak.

Your eyes are closed in resignation, a knot in the back of your throat.

His hands are tight, almost harsh, your fingertips throb with trapped blood he’s gripping you so tight.

“I’d ask for an answer,” His jaw rubs at your temple, 5 o’clock shadow scratching at your soft skin, “But for some reason-” he whips you around, his hands grasping your upper arms in a steely hold “-I feel like you’d just lie.” He hisses heatedly.

His skin is clammy, limbs are shaking, his mind is abuzz with activity, he’s nauseous, nursing a migraine-

“You’re detoxing.” You say, your voice is strangely steady. You don’t know if you say it because you need to say something, or if it’s some off-hand way to disregard everything that’s happening. Like he’s just hallucinating or some shit.

“Am I?” He mutters, watching your face, your eyes flicker behind your closed lids, your throat jumping in nervousness. He doesn’t clarify whether he’s asking you if he’s detoxing, or if he’s hallucinating. He doesn’t think it actually matters.

You can’t believe this is happening. It shouldn’t have.

The next words out of his mouth have your eyes snapping open and the breath leaving you in one fell swoop.

“Maybe you really are dead,” he muses, a wrinkle between his brows, his hazel eyes glimmering sadly.

The background bleeds in. The lake his physical body is resting at. But there’s no sound of water, or birds, or the wind. You’re both still in his head.

His lips stretch sadly, “You’ve never been afraid of me before.” He explains pitifully, his eyes drawn to his hands on your arms that have loosened, they merely hang now, not grasp.

You make your first mistake in reaching for him, in curling your hands into the front pockets of his slacks, subconsciously tugging him closer. The ascot around his neck is missing, lying in the grass some feet behind him. Points for continuity.

“I want answers,” he tells you firmly, his voice brittle. He feels your fingers curl a little tighter, feels your knuckles brush against his thigh- “But I don’t need them, not really. All I need is…”

His hands seem to remember for him, like points on your body are the steps to a dance only the two of you know. A sweep up the side of your neck, the smooth column of your throat ghosting along the dip in the middle of his palm, over- across your jawline, past your ear and back, under, and up, through your hair. Wind and twist your hair in his fingers at the base of your head, tug, tug again, tug and massage until-

You sigh, unbidden, your eyes fluttering.

He smirks.

His other hand splays wide across the small of your back, thumb pressing ever so slightly against the bulge of your spine, fingers curling in the warm give of your waist, feel your hip-bone in his palm. Up…under the loose fabric of the shirt you’re wearing, fingertips trickling over the curve of your ribcage, coast along, tease the weight, the roundness of a breast- _you sigh again_ -and around to your back. Slide and roll over your shoulder blades, and it’s there that he pulls you in, chest to chest, no room to breathe except into one another.

Your eyes open, slowly. And you think, perhaps, he isn’t the only one that’s got a drug problem. You lean into him like a crutch, like he’s the only crutch that could possibly hold you up.

“Tell me I’m crazy.” He says suddenly, his eyebrows anchoring down, casting shadow on his gorgeous hazel eyes.

Your hands slide up the wrinkled smoothness of his collared shirt, you watch them go, like it might be the last time you get the chance. “Why?”

He gets impossibly closer, as if he wants to feel more than the tenderness of your skin, like there is no such thing as ‘close enough’. “I don’t think I can survive this any other way.” _I can’t walk away from this, if this is actually real._

Your gaze shoots up to meet his, and he’s so vulnerable in this moment, as if he’s staring his mortality in the face at the edge of a steep drop, and your heart aches for what you’ve done.

Studiously, with practiced ease, your fingers begin unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re detoxing.” You say. And it’s all you’ll give him.

He’s neither satisfied or disappointed, he just _is._

And that’s a God-send in itself.

He closes his eyes for a moment, forces himself not to move as you tug his shirt from its tucked-in position. He opens them when your fingers find his belt, and he murmurs, mostly to himself, “I could never detox you.”

And then he’s on you, all heat and hard hands and merciless lips and you can’t keep up. And then he’s open to you, completely open, and you feel everything from the symptoms of his detox to the tumultuous roiling of his emotions that beat at you voraciously like ocean waves.

You rock on your heels, caught inactive and stripped raw. You want to sob, scream, you want to break bottles and punch walls until your knuckles bleed, you want-

Your breath stutters in your chest like a broken-down car.

Eliot is lost in his desperation to have you, to keep you. He’s pulling your shirt off you, eyes unfocused, hazy with desire.

-you want to die.

It’s like a shock of cold water that drives you to action again when Eliot touches your bare skin. It’s his need for you, bleeding, and pouring into you, amplified to monumental proportions by your own need. It’s a feedback loop of need, need, _need_ and it blots everything else out.

He kisses you, hard. He almost topples you with his want, pushes into you, makes your back arch for him, your hands scrabble at his neck. He’s got you so tight you don’t know what to do except hold on, chase him. After all this time avoiding him-

Eliot hikes your body up, just enough to settle a thigh between your legs and he holds you captive against his body, against the suggestion of what you both want and need that it’s become palatably painful with each passing second.

You moan into his mouth, and he groans back, drags his thigh up-

You gasp, wrenching your head to the side so you can breathe and Eliot dives into your neck, tongue swiping, teeth biting, lips sucking…

_Sometimes I dream of this, and I wake up hard and alone. Sometimes I don’t have to dream. But I still end up hard and alone._

You splutter at the echo of Eliot’s voice, heard outside his body. But you remember that this isn’t his real body, just a projection.

_That’s not going to happen this time, is it?_

You rock your hips into his thigh, yelp when his fingers find a breast and harshly roll the pebbled peak between his thumb and index. “Fuck. _No._ ” you growl, and he mimics the sound.

There’s hardly a second to register between him detaching, your back hitting the ground, and his hands hooking into the waistband of your cotton sleep-shorts. Your vision swims, Eliot’s hands fumble, his eyes blink hazily as he tugs your shorts down your legs.

He’s still open to you emotionally, pouring into you. The last two months...you feel it all, wrapped around your bones like ice.

His eyes darken, whittle down to something that’s knife sharp as he slides out of his collared shirt and bends over you, eclipsing your body with his own. But you don’t care about what it could mean, not when he’s close enough for you to bury your hands in his hair.

You tug him down, crush your mouth to his in a feverish kiss, a stark contrast to the slow, precise roaming of his hands over your body. An arm underneath you arches your back for him, and you hum into his mouth, anticipating.

His fingers find you warm and wet, and ready. And neither one of you can help the groans that break out when he sinks three digits into you down to the knuckles. He stops there for a moment, feels your walls pulse and squeeze his fingers, listens to you breathlessly beg him, and try to kiss him at the same time. A few strokes, curious in nature, easy in pace, but desirous in the depth he buries them- and he can’t wait any longer.

He frees himself from his slacks, barely has the time to kick all of it off his ankles before you’re rising up and he’s sitting back on his knees. Hands on your hips holding you steady, your own landing on his shoulders for leverage as you sink onto him, the both of you losing your breath at the familiar sensation. Your fingernails dig in, your teeth find your bottom lip when he’s fully sheathed.

Eliot is open-mouthed, puffing quietly, watching the rise and fall of your chest. His eyes feel heavy, and you have barely started but he already feels fucked-out. Your hands burrow into his hair at the back of his neck and his eyes lift to find you looking at him reverently, waiting.

“You remember that promise you made me?” he asks you quietly, hands squeezing at your hips, and the look you give him tells him that you don’t. So, he _makes you remember._

_Brown, curly hair, pale skin, bright hazel eyes. The sweetest of laughs, accompanied by the purest smile he’s ever seen. Tiny arms wound round his neck-_

“You remember that promise now?” He blinks up at you, slowly. Wordlessly, you nod, your eyes warm, glassy. “Good,” he says, sliding his hands up your ribcage, applying strength you forgot he had. He lifts you off him a few scant inches, and the slow drag has your spine shuddering. “Cause I still want that.”

-

His hands rest on the small of your back, fingers rubbing aimlessly. He can feel you watching him, feels it as solidly as the finger you have tracing the angle of his jaw. You hadn’t disappointed him afterward, just like every other time, after the high had come down, after you sank into him, bone tired…you whispered his name like a covetous secret, bordering on worship.

He falls in love a little more each time he hears you say his name that way.

“What?” he says after a while, dragging his hand up the length of your spine.

“We have to go. We can’t stay in your head.” You reply softly, outlining the shape of his mouth.

“What, not a good place to be?” he teases listlessly.

You twitch a pale smile. “You have things to do.” You remind him, and he sighs so big you’d think you were asking him to donate his entire closet to Goodwill.

“You going to close me up in here again?” He asks you, his tone guarded. His hands run the lines of your body, committing them once again to memory.

You don’t answer.

But that in itself is an answer. Eliot understands that much.

His lips purse for a moment in a display of petulant grumpiness before he’s looking at you with a softer expression. “I swear to God, when I finally see you-“

“Are you threatening me, Waugh?”

He narrows his eyes at you, “Shut up.” But there’s no venom.

“Or what?” your expression is cheeky, and you raise your head from his chest to give him the full brunt of it.

“Or I’ll marry you.” He says matter-of-factly, a glint in his eye.

You snicker, recognizing the reference, but you gloss over it. “You promise?” you ask him, a smile on your lips. Your eyes flicker between his deep hazels, and his smirking mouth.

“Yeah,” he murmurs as you lean down. “I fucking do.”

-

Eliot drifted before you did. His physical body succumbed to fatigue and emotional exhaustion and the link between the two of you fizzled out like a weak fire. You stitched the wall, fled into the sanctuary of your mind, and felt the heaviness leave. Felt _his_ grief and turmoil leave you, only to be replaced by your own guilt and regret.

You’ve sat in the darkness of your room for the past hour, reliving, torturing yourself with the macabre goodbye you and Eliot shared. When you had awoken in silence of your bedroom you were shaking, a cold sweat covering your skin.

Your hand rests over the junction of your neck and shoulder, appreciating the warmth and ache there. The red-purple bruise of a hickey…lines that sting run down your back-

_His fingers dig into the softness of your back, no nails, just fingers. He needs something to hold onto as you rock your hips into his, as you drop and roll and nestle him just right in your warm, velvety channel._

-and you sigh. Feel a soft ache in your hipbones that coaxes a new wave of want and loneliness. You aren’t completely sure how something that happened in your shared conscience can take appearance on your body, but you won’t argue. You’ll run your fingers over all the bruises and the hurts until they disappear over time. And then you’ll yearn for the memory, get lost in your head, find something that takes the edge off your bone-deep need.

The backs of your teeth carry the faintest trace of him. Cigarettes, the mean tang of alcohol, and something that’s just Eliot. And it’s that unknown something that makes your stomach tremble and clench, turns your spine to putty.

You dig your teeth into your bottom lip. You taste iron.

You fling your blankets off your body and march down the long hallway to the library, your sweat-touched feet sticking to the floor. Light spills from underneath the door, an eerie golden glow streaking across the hallway floor.

When you open the door you find Kit curled up in a window seat, book in his lap, a candle on the table by his right shoulder offers him light to read with. He looks up at you, surprised to find you awake.

“Hey,” he says, a brow cocked. His hair is mussed, fluffy and slightly tangled. “You couldn’t sl-” he cuts himself off suddenly, leans over in his window seat towards you, his eyes narrowed.

You straighten your back in response. “W-what?”

He snaps his book shut. “What’s that?” he asks, and stands, his eyes still narrowed in your direction.

“What’s what?” you frown and ball your fists at your side as he approaches, book in hand, suspicion making his eyes glimmer.

Kit stares down at you. “What is _that_?” he inquires and lifts a hand to point at your neck.

Well…

Shit.

-

Sunlight spears through the blackness of his eyelids, making him squint and groan. Eliot is sore down the bone, beat to Hell and back, and feels gritty in every corner of his body. His hands are on his stomach, rising and falling with his breath. Somewhere, below his ribcage, he’ll find evidence of your mouth on him. He knows for certain that there’s a very deep red-purple bruise on his right hipbone

He blinks wearily into the sky, his mind empty. And by that he means that his mind is quiet, at peace. He isn’t chasing something through fog.

“Eliot?!”

He jolts in shock at the loud exclamation of his name, the worry, and he wrinkles his brow in confusion.

“Eliot?!”

Grimacing, he sits upright, hinging at the waist and turns his head. Margo, Alice, and Quinten are wandering around the campsite, hands around their mouths, yelling for him.

Margo is the first to spot him, and the withering look she sends him would normally have him shrinking. As it is, he scrunches his brow a little more and grouses,

“What?!”

He’s in for a day, judging by the looks he receives. He continually sneaks his hand under the waistband of his slacks to feel at his hip-bone, to rub at the ache there. Just to get him through the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to skip this small portion, but I'd like expand on something that I couldn't work in. And it's Eliot's 'capture' of you within his own mind. When it became clear to him that the wall was your doing, your spellwork, he knew it was beyond his league to disenchant. He's fully aware that you are smarter than him, you've got him outfoxed when it comes to complex spellwork. What you don't realize is that he's crafty in other ways. His own well-being means nothing if he has a chance of getting something he wants.   
> He ravaged the wall in his mind recklessly, tirelessly, like a man crazed. He knew that you'd appear to fix the mess he'd made- "Never could sit still when I'd throw a tantrum." (something i wanted him to say but couldn't work into the story) -even though the damage wasn't that severe. He stood post at the tear in the wall, waiting for you to enter...and then he retreated, only so he could lull you into a sense of false security, banking on the fact that your difference in power would convince you that he was no threat.   
> But we all know how that worked out.   
> I don't know. I just felt the need to elaborate that Eliot realizes his own shortcomings, his weaknesses, and then uses those weaknesses to his advantage. He's a crafty son of a bitch and no one can convince me otherwise. Fight me.


	9. Stone Burnt Orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's keeping afloat, just the knowing, the knowing that you're out there and you're stronger- so much stronger than he remembers you being -it gives him hope in spite of all the reasons he has to doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o! It's me!!! Nothing action-wise. Most of the plot development happens in the background, in little clues and off-hand comments. If it isn't obvious, this fic is just relationship focused, I can't help myself, sue me. Or fight me out back the local Red Lobster, I'm all about options.

Another climb, more burning ache in your thighs that turns to numbness and your body pushes through on auto-pilot. This is steeper than the last, footholds shoddier, you have to dig your heels in. The cloak you wear whips around you in the harsh, arid wind, carrying nothing but dust and heat.

You hold it at the clasp, you head ducked from the angry sun overhead.

You trip in the sand, and gasp.

Hands reach for your shoulders, slide to your arms and you’re hauled up to your feet.

Kit drags you after him, his hold unyielding as his long trunks of legs carry him up the steady incline of this sand dune. He lets you go when you reach the top, but he stands behind you, looking over your head at the endless sandscape ahead of both you. Golden hills disappear far into the horizon, varying shades of gold, rust, and tan. Some of them smoothly curved, others peaking like pyramids.

Kit slides past you, his scarlet red cloak brushing your side. His hair has grown, gotten wilder, curlier, his skin tanner.

He stands on the last inch of the dune before the decline, staring into the blazing sun. Looking for landmarks in landscape that bleeds déjà vu.

“Are you seriously not talking to me?” you ask his back, and watch sand swirl around his boots, billow the pattern of his flax cloak.

Kit’s head turns in your direction, briefly. His cerulean blue eyes meet yours, striations of blue appearing deeper surrounded by all this gold. “No,” he says, just to prove you wrong.

You groan, and trail after him when he starts down the sand. “I don’t- fuck -I don’t know what else to tell you, okay?” you turn sideways, digging your fingers into the dune to steady yourself.

Kit sighs ahead of you. “Yeah, I’ve heard you.” His tone is flat, his pace is sure-footed, arms and hands safely inside his cloak.

“Then what do you want?” You growl. You accidently step on the hem of your own cloak and get a leg tangled in it. You skid to a halt, fallen on your ass, and end up at Kit’s feet.

You stare at his black leather brogue boots petulantly, and your petulance only grows when he bends down to his knees to meet your eyes.

“Nothing. I just don’t think you know what you want…” His cloak is bunched, wrinkled at the bend of his waist, his hood fallen heavily over his face.

You bristle. “What does that mean?”

Kit sighs in resignation. Like he knew this question was coming, did everything he could to hold it off, and still arrived here. “We have access to all this old knowledge, powerful magic, ways to master it, and,” Kit conjures spheres of fire in his palm, red, blue, green purple, and spins them in orbit. “And you couldn’t keep a second-year student locked in his own mind?”

Kit raises his eyebrows in skepticism. “Really?”

You fumble for a response, watch the fire in his hand. “It’s more complicated than that. It didn’t have specifics for soulmates…” It’s a weak excuse and you know it, he knows it.

“Truth is, you wanted to see him, wanted him to break out-”

“No.” You interrupt, and Kit stops talking for a moment, his expression patient. When you say nothing more, he frowns softly.

“…You didn’t complete the spell, did you?”

Sweat gathers at the back of your neck and the dip of your collar-bone in the space between his question and your answer.

But as Eliot has learned from you recently, silence is an answer.

Kit has the gall to look disappointed.

It’s enough to have you curling your lip in exacerbation. “You have _no_ idea-” you hiss at him. It’s a mean idea, something entirely unnecessary, but you’re going to do it anyway.

You focus energy in your hands, push it into your fingertips, and when you feel electricity rush your skeleton you extend your hands. Your thumbs land on Kit’s temples, fingers curling around the curve of his skull, yellow light emanating from the points of physical contact.

He gasps, his own larger hands snapping up to grasp your wrists, but the spell is already running its course.

You’re a waterfall, a torrent of memories and emotions and you pour out, pour into Kit and he has no choice but to accept.

_“Hmmm…no one will care if you’re late, right?” Eliot asks you, hands gripping the button panels of his shirt you’re wearing. He smiles down at you, innocent, mostly._

_“They’ll care,” You inform him, but it falls on deaf ears as he pulls you into his bare chest. You know you’re going to be late. You might not even show up._

_-_

_“And this…” Your run your fingertips across Eliot’s hands, over the bones there. You share your magic, trickle it into his veins softly, and he inhales sharply at your back, “Is how you turn sunlight into a liquid.” You finish, watching the rays of light quaver, convalesce, thicken, and then shimmer as they roil and obtain substance._

_“It’s- wow. Wow.” Eliot murmurs, eyes riveted on the glowing mass of sunlight floating just inches above his palms. His attention skitters when you lean into him, your hands wrapping around his thighs._

_Warily, uncertainly, he drops one hand, a crease of focus pulling his eyebrows taut. When he’s able to maintain the state of the spell, he chuckles a little breathlessly, and presses a kiss into your hair._

_“Show me something else,” He asks you quietly, twining his fingers with your own as he lets the spell dissolve. The sunlight fragments into the glowing crystals before fading away._

_-_

_It’s quiet, save for Eliot’s breath in your ear and the rain on the windows. You’re almost sure he’s fallen asleep, as still as he is, how silent he’s been. But you can feel his heartbeat at your back, between your shoulder blades, and occasionally you catch snippets of his thoughts: Rain. Cold. Y/N. Warm. Perfect. Stay here forever._

_You settle a little more in his lap and his arms snake tighter, they pull the blanket a smidge farther, covering your form._

_He’s always tired, content after sex, and he can never be bothered to put his clothes back on. At least, not all of them. He usually gets as far as his boxer briefs and decides that’s enough. It varies when it comes to you. 9/10 you’ll find whatever shirt he was wearing, maybe his discarded sweatpants- if he hasn’t got a hold of you yet -and you’ll be wrapped up in the scent of him._

_Tonight though, tonight he hasn’t let you out of his arms at all, both of you naked. It’s a good thing you don’t live on the ground floor._

_A rumble of thunder has you leaning forward in Eliot’s lap and he grumbles into your shoulder. He nuzzles his nose at your neck and you huff._

_“Are you going to watch this storm with me?”_

_You feel the moment he opens his eyes, you become hyperaware of him, like he’s looking at all of you all at once. He shifts his thighs, and he’s blasé when his arousal slides against you, makes no note of it whatsoever._

_“Are you?” He quips, as the first flash of lightning breaks the turbulent sky._

_-_

_“Why is this always such a problem for you?” You ask, your voice raspy, ragged._

_He exhales a plume of smoke, paying you no mind. He smokes over the couch, just to be petty._

_“I can’t tell you about the magic, not all of it.” You’re on round 43 of this argument and you don’t know how many other ways you can explain it._

_Eliot whirls, points at you with his burning cigarette. “You mean you can’t tell me about the dangerous shit. Can’t give me heads-up: Hey, babe, doing some major arcana today, thought you’d want to know in case I get myself killed.” He licks his lips, narrows his eyes and then turns his back on you._

_You sink into the couch, bury your fingers into your hair and sigh. “That wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t-”_

_Eliot scoffs, rounds the couch and plops down in your leather armchair so vehemently, the leather sighs for him._

_“Half the time I don’t even know when we’re doing major arcana. And the main purpose is merely to study, research-”_

_“But you don’t just research!” Eliot cuts you off, his eyes severe. He takes a drag of his cigarette._

_“No.” You mutter and close your eyes feeling fatigue overtake your limbs, strain turning your shoulders into a bolt of tension. “I know.”_

_It’s quiet for a grand total of five minutes, and Eliot’s finished his cigarette by the two-minute mark, and now he’s holding the shriveled butt of it in his hand because the ashtray is on the coffee table and he’d have to lean forward to put it away, lean towards you._

_You whet your lips, staring at the carpet like it holds the resolution to this tiresome fight. “You’re from Indiana, your parents are farmers, you hate your upbringing, done everything you could to erase it from who you are-”_

_“What?” he interjects tiredly, but his eyes have hardened slightly._

_You raise your head to meet him half-way. “I come from money and privilege and diamond crusted expectations, generational obligation, and I’ve found this thing that I can do- something that’s rare, and it’s needed, and it was my choice-” you swallow thickly and clasp your hands between your shaking knees,_

_“I don’t have to do this. It’s not an obligation, but I’m good at it, and it makes me happy- it challenges me in ways I didn’t know I could be challenged, it makes me a better person. I’m not saying I do this because I’m a philanthropist, or I’m avidly pursuing altruism, I just-” your eyes well up against your will and Eliot is wide-eyed, riveted on you as you spill your mind and heart._

_“I want to learn new things, new ways to use magic because we can do so many things with it- we should be able to make things better. Maybe one day we can get to a point where kids won’t have to light rooms on fire and almost kill their siblings, or accidently kill another person on impulse to learn they’re special because it shouldn’t cost that. Magic shouldn’t destroy who we are before we’ve even learned about it.”_

_Eliot springs to his feet while you’re still talking and kneels between your thighs. His eyes don’t know where to go: they jump from your eyes that are spilling tears to your trembling lips, to your shaking hands that land on his vest, curling underneath the material._

_“I just want to **believe**_ _in magic the way I believe in you!” you sob, sniffling childishly, blinking furiously against this torrent of tears that won’t stop._

_Eliot nods, cups your face to brush his thumbs over your warm salt-stained cheeks, and then slides a hand to the back of your head to pull you into him. He kisses the top of your head contritely, once, twice, three times, and runs his free hand up and down your back._

_“Okay.” He whispers after some time has passed, after your shaking shoulders have stilled and your breathing has evened out. “Okay, baby. You can go save the world.”_

_You snort into his chest, vocal chords raw but watery with lingering tears. “For the record: I didn’t need your permission.” You lift your head from his chest to see him roll his eyes, and then his expression is softening as he takes in your tear-wrecked face. “But I did need your blessing.”_

_“God,” he says, petting hair away from your face, “Next time just tell me to shut up. Don’t let me make you cry.” He’s tender as he takes a handkerchief from his vest pocket and wipes at your sensitive cheeks and under your eyes._

_You chuckle in the back of your throat, cup his jaw and plant a kiss in the dimple of his chin- it makes him smile, it always does -and work your way up to the corner of his lips._

_He hums, just a couple vibrations short of a chuckle and turns his head, slotting his lips to yours._

_-_

Kit gasps sharply, loses his balance, falls back on his haunches and stabs his elbows behind him into the sand for leverage. He’s staring at you with eyes the size of dinner plates, tears running down his cheeks in rivulets. You’re in much the same state.

Kit sucks in a choppy breath, frowns morosely and closes his eyes with a shuddering sigh. He raises his arm, beckons you forward with a couple fingers and welcomes you gladly when you shuffle into the diamond shape of his bent legs.

“Shit.” He hisses into your hair when you twine your arms around his neck.

“Yeah…” You agree limply, snuggling into the curve of his neck and shoulder junction.

“The way you feel about each other…” He trails off, encompassing your body with his arms, holding tight. “Fuck, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I would’ve stayed- Jesus, Y/N.” After a while that’s all he can say: Jesus, Y/N.

Because you gave him everything. Everything. And it’s too much.

Too much heartache and desire. Too much regret and guilt and longing. Too much want and need tangled together so closely they’re basically the same thing. There’s too much development. So many insecurities and doubts and fears laid bare, overcome by slow thoughts and careful hands. There’s so many arguments that ended either in the apartment being empty, you staying, Eliot leaving, or vice versa. There are so many pointless mornings of breakfast at your tiny table in the kitchenette. So many kisses that tasted like coffee and cigarettes.

There’s so much love it makes him feel hollow.

When the residue of the spell wears off he’ll never come across anything so holy as what you and Eliot have and feel for one another, and that guts him, even as he’s spiraling through your memories second-hand.

Kit stands, awkwardly and much to chagrin, with you in his arms and begins your journey anew, dry wind beating at his face. He seems unhindered by your weight, his mind somewhere else as he walks, idly, absentmindedly hoisting you higher, netting his arms under your ass.

You only get it when you slump in his hold and drop your chin over his shoulder, and he rumbles a happy hum in his chest.

Residual feelings from that spell. Not only did he get to see through your eyes he also was allowed into Eliot’s psyche during those times, able to experience Eliot’s feelings and thoughts like you were able to. Your stomach twists in knots.

“I’m going to make you a promise, Y/N,” Kit speaks up, his voice gruff, and you raise your eyebrows. “You listenin’?”

You roll your eyes. “No, I’ve mysteriously, inexplicably died within the last twenty seconds.”

“Fuck you,” he quips, and sails on like you hadn’t sassed him at all. “I promise I’m gonna get you back to him. You’re going to see him again. I’ll get you there.”

You twist the fabric of his cloak in your fingers. “We’ve got a job to do.” You sullenly remind him.

He smirks, grabs your thighs and literally twists you around his body until you’re piggy-backing him. “We’d better get to it, then.” He says, and starts sprinting down the rest of the sand dune, centered and balanced and you laugh into the wind.

-

Eliot drums his fingers on an ornate table runner, staring at his crown which reminds him of the earth. Dark like dirt, littered with random minerals and precious metals, gems. He’s in some refurbished room off the main audience chamber since they’re still cleaning out the throne room of cobwebs, dead rats and dead people.

Beside him an archway opens to a small half circular balcony overlooking the gardens that have been kept nurtured and maintained. Which is slightly humorous because they know to water plants and prune bushes but they don’t know how to grow crops.

He shudders at the memory of today. He’d gone back to his roots and it was not the least bit pleasant. He wishes you were around so he could belly-ache about it. The sun dips out from a thick canvas of fluffy clouds and Eliot turns just in time to be blinded by it-

_Rolling hills of sand glitter and gleam underneath a burning yellow sun, dust storms brew on the azure blue backdrop of the horizon and every direction is indistinguishable. Fabric whips wildly somewhere beyond his scope of vision, sharp but somehow melodious. Sand whispers and hisses, footsteps approach him from behind, and then a figure ghosts past him._

_Crimson cloak flapping and billowing dramatically, long legs just barely revealed by a strong gust of wind. Eliot’s brows furrow. The figure stops, staring into the sun, and then reaches up to push back their hood._

_Eliot’s breath stops when he sees the tattoos on their forearm, their olive skin darkened to an almond hue._

_Kit’s dark hair dances in the wind, carefree, slightly tangled._

_Suddenly, Kit’s shoulders tighten, raise an inch, and then he turns his head to look over his shoulder apprehensively. Kit’s deep blue eyes enlarge in surprise, and Eliot is ready to aim, and fire when Kit crosses the few feet between them and hugs him._

_He’s shocked stiff, his arms hanging limply at his sides. When Kit pulls away, all Eliot can think to say is: “What the fuck?”_

_Kit’s not at all moved. “It’s good to see you. I’ve been waiting here for a while. Didn’t think you were going to answer.”_

_Eliot’s eyebrows furrow into a deep crease. “Answer?”_

_Kit grins, and then points beyond the both of them at the sun. “I didn’t know it was possible to avoid the sun as avidly as you’ve done all day.”_

_“I don’t-…what?” Eliot frowns, crosses his arms over his chest. “That was vague as fuck.”_

_Kit shrugs. “Kinda like telephone. I’ve been calling you all day: the sun’s the receiver.”_

_“How even?” Eliot is properly flabbergasted, takes a few steps away to look into the sun and then shakes his head. “Calling me. Well, here I am.”_

_Kit nods firmly. “Yeah. We’re both good, so don’t worry about that,”_

_Eliot snorts. “I don’t care about you.”_

_Kit smiles. “Okay.” He rolls his shoulders, “I can’t tell you where we are, but I can tell you that we’re making good head-way. Shouldn’t be too long now,” Kit stretches out his neck on his shoulders, “You’re still in Fillory, right?”_

_“Yes. I fucking am,” Eliot snaps and whirls around to stomp towards Kit, “So, where the Hell are you?” He’s accusatory, and confused and perhaps a bit lonely._

_“Busy.” He’s so flippant with his response, which throws Eliot for a short loop considering how out of character Kit was earlier with that hug. “What’s the news from Fillory?”_

_Eliot’s eyes dull unexpectedly. “They don’t know how to farm. People are starving. Magic is all out of whack. I’m High King. And I’m stuck in Fillory.”_

_Kit’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Shit. The last Harry Potter book was more light-hearted than that.”_

_Eliot works his jaw agitatedly and sighs. “What did you really kidnap my conscious for?”_

_Kit grin impishly. “Aw, to give you a pep-talk. Don’t be a tyrant king, stretch in the morning when you wake up, do what you can with what you have, and don’t stress about The Beast.”_

_“Ah, the last part of that is the easy part, I’m guessing?” Snide, pissy, vitriol, malignant, fed-up. All these things apply to the delivery of his statement and his facial expression._

_“Relax. We’ll see you again. Maybe in time for that spring wedding you want.” Kit winks, and snaps his fingers-_

Eliot sucks in a deep gasping breath and presses a hand to his chest. “Shit- fuckingdammit!” He pulls in a long lungful of oxygen and rubs at his eyes. “I’m getting real tired of this mindfuckery bullshit.” He growls to himself, hoping somehow the message reaches you and Kit both.

Eliot glances towards the balcony, the sun-kissed stones looking all warm and inviting even with vines of ivy climbing the column archway. He steps outside, leaning on the ledge and basks in the tameness of the sun, the relief of the breeze. And before he even knows what he’s doing he’s got his palms laying parallel with the earth and he’s creating a small colorless vortex of magic in his hands.

Sunlight gathers, glows, twists and writhes above his palms, reflects off the rings he’s wearing. It becomes dense, weighty, heavy, casts a shadow. Thick and syrupy, it ebbs and crests in his palms, pulsating and glimmering.

A wan smile lifts his lips. The magic in his hands reminds him of you. It’s small and fleeting, but it makes him feel connected to you just for a moment. He takes the spell one step further, presses it down, crushes it into a solid and stares at it in his palm.

Strangely enough, it’s nearly weightless now. But it gives off light all its own, bright and dazzling. Eliot hollows it out in the center, widens the hollow until he’s left with a thin ring of solid sunlight. As he holds up to the sun itself, he wonders if you’ve done this yet. He concludes that you probably have, someone as gifted and talented as you.

As irony has it, you haven’t actually made solid sunlight. Eliot is the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally made myself cry this time too, especially while writing that argument scene between Eliot and Reader. Just- *turns away* -don't look at me.   
> I doubt listening to Mumford and Sons helped the situation at all.   
> <3


	10. Royal Blue, Royal Red, A King's Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never a dull day. Never. He isn't sure if it's been that way since meeting you, or if it's been that way since meeting everyone else. Either way...he's almost positive he wouldn't trade his days away, unless the payoff was you.

He feels strange, like he’s contracted the flu but it’s keeping its distance, watching from a few feet away, sitting on the edge of his immune system, bored. Everyone’s talking, informing him of…things…

He presses a hand against his forehead, briefly massages at an ache in the center…the faintest of whisperings, like silvery silken thread flutter around his ears. Disjointed words, ghostly murmurs, but-

He looks around his palm, his friends discussing this and that. Discussing how to deal with the Beast. The sounds don’t match the words though.

He feels off. Sick. But not quite so.

“Eliot?” Margo is giving him a concerned look, a tiny crease between her perfect eyebrows, “You alright?”

Eliot blinks a few times, rolls his shoulders and clears his throat. “Mm, yep. Stellar.” His stomach twists in a sudden hard knot and his face pinches. “Nope. I’m lying, I need-” He staggers to his feet and swallows back a wave of nausea. “M’nna lay down.” He sighs, brushing off everyone’s worried gazes with a raise of his hand and a weak smile.

In the hallway leading to his bedchamber his legs turn to jelly and he slumps sideways into the wall. The world tilts and spins on its axis but he’s upright, or near enough anyway, and he feels something pressing at him from all sides, something unseen and obtrusive. It’s unfamiliar and unyielding and it punches him in the gut like a stone fist.

Eliot stumbles into his room, presses his back flat against the doors and takes a gulping breath of air before he dives in…dives into his own conscience.

It’s just as dark as it was before, as expansive and gaping but there’s something…off-kilter. It’s like holding a breath before you go underwater, but you wait too long so you barely breach the surface before your lungs burst and you’re sucking in water instead of air. It’s like that…and he wonders if the wall is going to hold and what’s on the other side of it.

_Paranoia._

Standing in the middle, that’s what he feels. That’s what he perceives- without reason -is on the other side. And the only thing keeping him from it is the wall you fabricated.

He doubts you made it with the purpose of keeping him safe but that’s what it’s doing right this moment and he’s grateful.

He lands on his bed like a teenager denied access to a party, and groans pitifully. He’s way too young to be having a psychotic break, it’ll damage his good looks.

-

“The fuck are you on about?” Eliot grumbles, a hand in his hair, fingers massaging his own scalp because his skull is throbbing.

Penny’s lips twitch with irritation. “I just fucking told you.” He glances out at the empty hallway and looks back at Eliot, who’s closed his eyes and sunk a little further into his mattress. Penny resists the urge to punch him in the dick. “The thrones are cursed. It’s a battle royale. Like fucking literally. And the curse wants Fillorian royalty as dead your sex life.”

Eliot scoffs, “My sex life is…” he opens his eyes, stares at the ceiling, comes to a disappointing revelation. “Yeah, it’s dead.” He grabs the spare pillow and plants it over his face. _Sweet death, come to me._

Penny snatches it out of his grip and throws it behind him. “Everyone’s gone bat-shit. Margo’s trying to poison everyone, I don’t know what the fuck the other two are up to…” Penny squints at Eliot’s blasé composure, “But you’re…”

“I’m fine.” Eliot says, rubbing at his temples, “I’ve got a migraine from Hell, but I’m great.”

Penny folds his arms over his chest. “Why are you fine?”

Eliot hums, “My woman boarded up mind tighter than the skinny jeans you wear.”

Penny simmers, “They’re not skinny jeans.”

“Sorry. Slacks. Skinny-slacks.” Eliot corrects himself, waving a hand dismissively.

“Whatever! You’ve still got both hands on the wheel…that’s good.”

“Is it?” Eliot asks, closing his eyes as pain blooms from the crown of his head. “Just how thorough is this curse? Because if I have to live with this migraine…well, I won’t.”

Penny’s lips part, that thought not having occurred to him. “I don’t know…Uh- look, just stay here. Stay out of sight…I think I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh, goody. My hero.” Eliot intones flatly as Penny turns on his heel and abruptly leaves.

When the doors close behind him, Eliot sits up in bed, and drops his head into his hands. It’s only then that he notices the itch at his wrists, the heat and he looks down at them. His eyes widen.

The Thread is plain as day. Glowing and pulsing, wavering around his veiny wrists like a lazy serpent.

“What is this?” he whispers, eyes riveted. His stomach plummets without warning, and his bones go cold before he falls forward off the bed, unconscious.

His feet hit solid ground, sandy bricks under his designer boots. A wall stands before him, tan, cracked, weathered. The sun is high in the sky, beating down fiercely. With a furrowed brow Eliot spins and leans back against it, hair getting snagged in tiny fissures.

Footsteps approach from his left. He tucks his hands into his pockets, his wrists warm but not irritated. He doesn’t know what it is, why he doesn’t have a reaction, but when you turn the corner wearing a cloak like the one he saw Kit in and your eyes meet- and yours go wide, wide as the sun in the sky -he gives you a measured, calm: “Hey. So, I’ve been cursed.”

He watches you gape and gawk and struggle for words, and he thinks it’s cute, or at least he thinks _he thinks_ it’s cute. “Literally. For once, no melodrama.” He makes an x over his chest, pops an eyebrow up at you.

“What are you doing here?” You say, unclasping your cloak from your neck. You fold it over an arm and start toward him.

He shrugs. “This is your head, right?”

Your brows pull together and after a moment, you shake your head. “No. This is…life. You’re not…”

Eliot stares at you blankly. “Huh. Am I haunting you?” He looks down at his legs, to make sure he still has them and you huff at him.

“No, you’re not dead. I’d feel it if you were.” You inform him, fingers curling into the fabric of your cloak. Sand skitters across the stones underneath your feet. “But you said you were cursed?”

“Mm, yeah. Apparently, the thrones in Fillory are cursed as shit and any royalty that sits in them goes batshit and tries to kill off the other throne-holders,” Eliot smiles sardonically. “My reign may have been short, but I was bomb as fuck. Should’ve seen the outfits I wore.”

You roll your eyes. “You took your whole closet to Fillory, I’m betting. I can make an educated guess about how you looked.”

Eliot smiles wanly, “You’re not wrong.” He swallows suddenly and inhales a sharp breath, “So, given that I might die criminally soon-”

“Dramatic.” You sigh, and drop the cloak at your feet. “It was Martin. Martin was the one who cursed the thrones,” You say and step closer, tip your head back to look up at him.

“How do you know?” Eliot asks, peering down at the heap of fabric at his feet.

“I know things,” You reach up with both hands and press your fingers against his temples. He inhales shakily, his larger hands snapping up to grasp your wrists. “I know his style, his signature. Bold, childish, arrogant. Thinking he knows more than he does- he leaves more loop-holes than he’s aware of.”

Eliot splutters weakly as a feeling akin to submersion comes over him, waves of warmth rush down on him from above, billow and bough at his frame and loosen parts of him he’s not even aware are wired tight.

When he opens his eyes- not aware that he closed them -your hands cup his jaw, and you’re smiling reassuringly at him.

“The Thread is intricate, I’m learning. Versatile. Does more than just link our thoughts,” His scent caresses your senses, it’s such a sweet trick. A tease. “Take this back with you. Don’t let our batshit crazy friends kill each other.”

Eliot frowns softly. “If they already have?”

Your hands slide down the front of him. “Take the curse off the thrones.”

Eliot nods slowly. Flits his gaze all over your face, notes the growth of your hair, the subtle changes in your skin, the accessories you’re wearing. So different, but so achingly familiar.

“Digging the outfit, babe.” He says, finding his hands on your waist without thinking about it. But that’s how it is: His hands do the thinking for him when you’re around.

You smile sadly. “Wake up, El. Wake up.”

-

“Heroin?” He says upon entering the throne room, encountering the bodies of his friends. Penny looks like he’s about to blow a gasket seeing Eliot.

Penny ignores his question, and reaches for the nearest syringe of adrenaline. “Thorough. Ridiculously thorough.”

Fen, present, but more a part of the background than the story steps forward and regards him in worry, “Eliot, are you okay?”

He smiles. “Perfection at its peak-”

“Are you still cursed?!” Penny asks as he slams the first syringe into Margo’s chest.

“Nope. I have been exorcised by my better half.”

Penny stops on his way to the table of syringes, disregarding Margo’s panicked resurrection. “She…what? Y/N dispelled the curse on you?”

Eliot nods proudly, tipping his chin with a smug grin.

“Damn. She’s a fucking badass. Be nice if she were a more active team-player.” Penny throws a syringe at Margo, who makes no effort to catch it. It clatters to the floor near her hip. Penny jerks his chin in Alice’s direction. “Go play Jesus. I’ll bring dipshit back.”

As Quinten and Alice come gasping to life, Eliot sighs. “What a day. I get why you guys don’t visit.”

Quinten yanks the needle out of his chest with a pained groan and watches Eliot walk back to the thrones with creeping alarm. “Eliot?”

Eliot looks over his shoulder. “Relax. I know what I’m doing.”

-

 

“Next time you guys visit, bring wine.” Eliot pouts into his goblet.

“What happened to your flask?” Quinten asks, leaning against a chair leg of his throne.

“It’s….somewhere,” Eliot remarks wistfully. “I assume.”

Quinten hums noncommittedly. “Can’t believe you’re the only one that didn’t die today.”

Eliot stretches his legs out, “I know. I feel robbed.”

Quinten shakes his head with a rueful smile. “You didn’t miss out on much.” Silence sits between them for a few moments before Quinten speaks again. “Y/N?”

Eliot puts his goblet on the floor, “She’s fine, far as I can tell. In the desert somewhere.”

Quinten processes that with a scrunched brow, and then it loosens, slips into confusion. “She’s…in another league. Undid Martin’s curse like she was tying shoelaces…and then just downloaded the counter-spell into your brain-” Quinten shakes his head, groans a little helplessly, “I really wish you hadn’t lost your flask.”

Eliot says nothing, just crosses his ankles and twines his fingers in his lap. “Our lives are such a cluster-fuck.” He notes softly.

“Sure it’s not a fuck-cluster?”

Eliot squints. “What’s a fuck-cluster?”

“I don’t know. Just made it up, I’m penning it.”

Eliot frowns thoughtfully, “Pretty sure I’ve heard ‘fuck-cluster’ before.”

Q shrugs. “Well, until you can give me a definition, it’s mine.”

Eliot sighs. “Your contribution to society can never be measured, such is its worth.”

-

_Eliot presses his ear to the door, listens hard and intently for any noise. But he’s only human, luckily, he’s also a magician. So, he whispers a spell under his breath and cups his hand around his ear before laying the side of his hand against the wood._

_All at once he can hear the kitchen sink running, porcelain clinking around under water, the scratch pad grinding against food plastered to dishes and he can visualize you there in front of the counter, wearing nothing but a tank-top and your underwear and his free hand clenches at the fabric of his slacks._

_He’s late, barely, but he needed a smoke and the walk here was just long enough for that. He’s been feeling on edge lately, and not for any reason of his own, it’s you. You’re the one that’s irritable and erratic, and randomly prone to bouts of silence or tears. Once or twice he’s walked in on you having a good cry in the bathroom and couldn’t coax anything out of you._

_It’s bled into him over the last few days, in the minutes between when you drop off to sleep and he fights to stay awake next to you, staring at the ceiling in the dark. He’s felt the subdued panic and the anxiety hiding underneath the faux pas calm and responsibility you wear like a designer coat. He’s worried, worried you’re slipping back into old tendencies- he’s terrified. Terrified he’s going to lose you in the worst way. So he’s taken precautions._

_Every time he goes to the Cottage he makes a new batch, slips it into the coffee machine in the morning long before you wake up. He rises early, earlier than he can bear just to make sure he has time to do what he needs to. The taste can’t be perceived around the bitterness of the coffee, and there’s an added bonus to him joining you for coffee as well: He won’t be able to hurt himself either. Because some days he really wants to, out of guilt. Guilt, because he can’t seem to find a way to help you out of this hole you’re falling into._

_Abruptly, the radio in the living room turns on, the CD player coming to life. Eliot hears you hum, quiet and almost nonexistent, but it brews hope in his stomach and he releases a pent up sigh. He opens the door softly, slips in, mindful of the coat rack level with his head and inches down the hallway._

_There are candles burning, he can smell them. Vanilla, and then something spicy but earthy. You’ve cleaned today. You didn’t go to Brakebills today, and he only knows that because Kit was practically up his ass asking about you. Fucking prick._

_You’ve got your hair up in a messy bun, and he was right, mostly- You’re wearing one of his sweaters. They typically strangle him from throat to waist but on you it’s all loose cotton and bunched up wrinkles at your elbows. Barefoot, looking like a vision._

_You seem better today. More relaxed, but not exactly yourself because you skipped out on school and you’re playing at being a mundane, run of the mill female._

_Eliot approaches you, drawn like a magnet by all your appeal and quiet charm. He smears himself against your back, plants his hands on the edge of the counter to give himself a reference, stop himself from getting ahead of the mood._

_You chuckle at him, “Not even a ‘Hello’ first?”_

_Eliot leans down, breathes in the scent of your shampoo and presses his lips into the side of your head. “Hello.” He pushes his weight into you, slowly, ignoring the way your elbows bump him as you continue to wash dishes. “Your boyfriend wouldn’t stop asking about you today.” He grumps, tucking his face into your neck._

_“Well, he has separation anxiety,” You pull the plug on the drain. “Just like someone else I know.”_

_Eliot inhales deeply, nips at your neck. “Yeah? Who’s that?”_

_“Oh, my other-other boyfriend.” You tease, flicking water off your hands._

_“Cute.” He remarks, lifting his head as you tilt yours back to look at him, smiling. “So, now that I’ve said hello…”_

_You smile wider, a laugh bubbling its way up your throat. “Now that you’ve said hello..” You turn, his hands grab your waist, and your chest warms. “You can get started on dinner, it’s your turn, remember?”_

_Eliot deflates, and groans childishly. He runs his hands up your sides, still groaning, “Now? Right now?”_

_You laugh, lay your hands on his stomach, “Or we could just go hungry.” You joke._

_Eliot nods vehemently, “Sounds good.” Before you can say another word, he bends down to press a searing kiss against your mouth. You groan into his mouth, and he agrees with a groan of his own, slanting his mouth and running his tongue along the seam of your lips._

_He takes like honey whiskey and cigarettes, and a hint of cinnamon; it drives all sense from you and leaves in its wake encapsulating want. There’s no escape from the need that beats in your veins and hijacks your heart. Your hands fumble at the vest he’s wearing, and you’ve no sooner unbuttoned it when Eliot grabs your thighs and hikes you up to sit on the counter._

_He wedges himself between your legs, slides the hem of your sweater up, and growls into your mouth when he discovers you aren’t wearing anything underneath his shirt._

_Your hands return to his chest, scrambling and clumsy, preoccupied with the feeling of his tongue in your mouth, and his bowing weight into you. If you aren’t careful you’ll fall into the sink._

_Eliot grabs your jaw, chin nestled between the curve of his thumb and index finger, and tilts your head back, baring your throat for him. A soft whine leaves your tingling lips as he bites and licks and sucks at the supple flesh of your throat._

_You renew your efforts of unclothing him, hands catching at the button panels on his shirt, pulling it wide._

_His own bigger hands grab your own and slap them down around the edge of the counter. He doesn’t say anything but the message was loud and clear._

_“I swear to_ **God** , _El.” You groan at him in exasperation. You feel him smile against your neck, pleased._

_“You can swear all you want.” He murmurs, sucking at your pulse. He releases your hair from its bun, buries a hand in it, pulls. Hard._

_The breath bursts out of you with a gasp, your fingers curl tight. He chuckles, nuzzles a sweet little kiss under your jaw and then tilts up to your ear, “But you’re gonna watch me.”_

**_Jesus._ ** _You don’t know what’s gotten into him, but you don’t have the heart to care, not when he sinks to his knees and drapes your legs over his shoulders. All you can do is release a shaky groan, pull a deep breath in through your nose and try to calm yourself because your respiratory system is prepping itself for a gallop._

_Eliot slides his hands up your thighs, humming in the back of his throat to the tune of the song playing in the background. He glances up at you, catches your impatient, hungry look, the hot blush across your cheeks and the teeth in your lip, and pulls you closer to the edge._

_You can feel his breath on you, his stubble grazing the softness on the inside of your thighs. He lays a cheek there and watches you, waits._

_He has moods. Flavors- if you will -when it comes to sex. Sometimes it’s all soft words and gentle hands, sweet kisses and lingering looks. Then there’s the fevered, frenzied rush to get inside you, clothes be damned, just enough to get close, and it’ll be against any surface- any surface -and it will be hard, rough. But he always makes sure you finish first. There’s an easy flavor, one that’s slow, languid, but molten like lava and it usually consists of him sitting against the headboard with his hands bruising your hips as you ride him toward oblivion. This one- right here -this one is rare. But GOD. Do you love it._

_He grasps your wrists, rubs his thumbs against the veins, kisses the crease in your palms made by the counter and then persuades your trembling fingers into his hair. He chuckles when you moan, when you fist his dark locks in your hands, and wait impatiently._

_His large hands wrap around the tops of your thighs. “Don’t forget to breathe this time.” He purrs, running his lips along your humming skin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little chapter has been sitting on my laptop for a couple of months, and I've gone through the intricate process of loving it and hating it through all that time that I couldn't even properly perfect it. Eventually, I realized I just needed to get out of my files and onto here. Love it or hate it, I'll understand either way XD Hope you're all well. Love you bunches!


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